Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca confirmed Cole Palmer will likely be joined on the sidelines by Mois\u00e9s Caicedo, Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez and Pedro Neto ahead of Saturday\u2019s trip to Nottingham Forest. After revealing that backup centre back Beno\u00eet Badiashile would be out until December with a muscular problem, Maresca added: \u201cAnd then we have Moi [Caicedo], Enzo [Fern\u00e1ndez], Pedro [Neto], they didn\u2019t take part in the session yesterday, and we\u2019ll see if they can train today, otherwise they\u2019re going to be out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maresca was able to welcome back Reece James, Tosin Adarabioyo and Andrey Santos, with Santos singled out as potentially important in midfield, but the manager conceded the squad will be weakened. \u201cEnzo is out, Moi is out, Pedro is out, it\u2019s a little bit of a balance, but again, we\u2019re going to try our best to find the right solution for the next games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez had been a doubt after being forced to withdraw from Argentina\u2019s international camp because of inflammation in his knee. Neto started both of Portugal\u2019s World Cup qualifiers this month but was forced off against Hungary after an hour with an injury issue. Caicedo elected to sit out Ecuador\u2019s two friendlies this month to prioritise his recovery at club level, but the decision has not led to full fitness.<\/p>\n
The squad must also manage the absence of Palmer, whose influence has been a recurring theme. \u201cDuring his single season at Stamford Bridge, Mauricio Pochettino memorably challenged his players to prove that they were not \u201cCole Palmer FC\u201d ahead of a rare outing without the talismanic playmaker. The Palmer-less outfit promplty lost 5\u20130.\u201d Since Maresca took over in the summer of 2024, that dependency has been reduced. Of the six matches Palmer has missed through injury this season, Chelsea have won five of them, including a late 2\u20131 victory over Liverpool last time out. Caicedo blasted in the opening goal in that clash.<\/p>\n
Caicedo\u2019s availability will be sorely missed. He started all 38 Premier League matches last term and leads the Premier League for tackles (28) and interceptions (18), underscoring his value both on and off the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca confirmed Palmer, Caicedo, Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez and Pedro Neto are likely to miss the Forest trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[944,1140,319],"class_list":["post-3853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-andrey-santos","tag-caicedo","tag-cole-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}