Rom\u00e9o Lavia is set to miss at least a month for Chelsea due to a quad injury, multiple reports say. Sky Sports News are among the outlets to report that Lavia will be absent from the first team for around four weeks and that Chelsea will continue to assess the 21-year-old. His extensive injury history means no risks will be taken with his recovery and there are already concerns he may be sidelined for longer than the initial timeframe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame in this moment because we were trying to minimise minutes for him but even with that, he\u2019s injured again,\u201d Maresca said after the game.<\/p>\n
A possible return in mid-December would see Lavia miss Premier League fixtures against Burnley, Arsenal, Leeds United and Bournemouth, with the meeting with Everton on Dec. 13 perhaps coming too soon. Chelsea also face Champions League tests against Barcelona and Atalanta during the same period. The situation is compounded by Mois\u00e9s Caicedo continuing to battle various minor fitness issues and Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez withdrawing from the Argentina squad over a four-month knee problem.<\/p>\n
Chelsea will look to adapt the squad while Lavia recovers. Reece James is likely to spend more time in midfield and Andrey Santos is another option. D\u00e1rio Essugo, who arrived from Sporting CP in the summer, is not expected back from a knee injury until 2026.<\/p>\n
Lavia has made 30 appearances for Chelsea but has spent 78 games on the sidelines, meaning he has featured in just 27% of the matches he could have been available for. The stop-start nature of his Stamford Bridge career is an increasing concern for the club given his standing as one of the most promising defensive midfielders in the game. Chelsea may need to explore additional cover in midfield, a move that could have long-term implications for Lavia\u2019s future at the club.<\/p>\n
Tom Gott is a writer, reporter and editor. A lifelong Chelsea fan and academy football enthusiast, he spends far too much time on Football Manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lavia faces a month out with a quad injury; Chelsea assess recovery while midfield cover is adjusted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[944,1047,945],"class_list":["post-4412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-andrey-santos","tag-champions-league","tag-dario-essugo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4412","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=4412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}