Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has confirmed striker Liam Delap is back in training and could return to competitive action before the end of the month. Maresca made clear that Saturday\u2019s visit from Sunderland remains too soon, but he suggested Wednesday\u2019s Carabao Cup fourth-round meeting with Wolverhampton Wanderers could be a sensible target.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiam took part in the session yesterday with the team for the first time, so he\u2019s not going to be available for tomorrow\u2019s game, but probably for the next match,\u201d Maresca explained. \u201cHe can be available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delap\u2019s imminent comeback would arrive at an important moment. Chelsea have struggled in front of goal in his absence, and Jo\u00e3o Pedro, another summer signing, has been required to tweak his role to help cover for the Englishman. That adjustment has coincided with a drop in his output.<\/p>\n
Pedro should be well rested for Saturday after being forced to sit out the 5\u20131 win over Ajax through suspension. Chelsea had no trouble finding the net against the Dutch visitors, and one of the game\u2019s standout moments came when captain Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez passed to Est\u00eav\u00e3o so the young Brazilian could take the penalty his quick feet had won. Est\u00eav\u00e3o converted from 12 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very, very good,\u201d Maresca reflected. \u201cI told the players after the game that for sure we were very happy about the winning, about the three points against Ajax.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the main thing about that game was Enzo, when he gave the ball to Est\u00eav\u00e3o we got to show how is the team in this moment, how they are all together in terms of togetherness, in terms of effort and this is what we need if we want to try to do something important.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Delap training again, Maresca has options to restore a striker who could relieve pressure on attacking teammates and provide fresh competition as Chelsea look to maintain momentum in cup and league fixtures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Delap back in training and likely available for the next match, says Maresca ahead of cup tie. Soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1067,190,1125],"tags":[1066,1089],"class_list":["post-3999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carabao-cup","category-chelsea","category-strikers","tag-carabao-cup","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999","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=3999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}