Liam Rosenior left little doubt about his approach to the fitness of Cole Palmer and Reece James after Chelsea\u2019s Carabao Cup semi-final loss to Arsenal, a late 1\u20130 defeat. The manager stressed the need to protect both players rather than risk further problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re giving everything,\u201d Rosenior said after the game.<\/p>\n
Rosenior underlined Palmer\u2019s recent contribution while outlining a cautious path. \u201cIn terms of Cole, Cole gave us an incredible 90-minute performance, the reason we fought back against West Ham. We have to take care of him. He\u2019s a gem. We have to take care of him and make sure he\u2019s right for the whole season.\u201d The comments reflect Palmer\u2019s managed minutes this term, which are linked to a groin injury that kept him out for nearly three months earlier in the season.<\/p>\n
At present neither Palmer nor James is thought to be suffering anything particularly significant alone. James did pick up a knock in the build-up to the semi-final, while Palmer\u2019s more limited role has been part of ongoing management after the long lay-off. Palmer first went down in the warm-up for Chelsea\u2019s second game of the season and has since struggled to fully shake off the issue, falling short of the expectations placed on him this campaign.<\/p>\n
Those realities complicate selection. Playing Palmer repeatedly might restore his fluidity, but it also risks aggravating the problem and returning him to the sidelines. Rosenior inherits a dilemma previously encountered by Enzo Maresca and is now having to balance the fitness of one of his most important attackers.<\/p>\n
James has a history of lengthy fitness battles, but this season has shown improvement. He has played over 1,500 Premier League minutes, a threshold he missed in each of the last three campaigns, and made his first 20th Premier League appearance since 2021\u201322.<\/p>\n
Both should be fit enough in theory to return to the starting XI, perhaps for Saturday\u2019s trip to face Wolverhampton Wanderers. Whether they play will follow discussions between Rosenior, Chelsea\u2019s medical staff and the players. Rosenior may opt to rest them ahead of the meeting with Leeds United three days later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rosenior insists Chelsea will not risk Cole Palmer or Reece James after Carabao Cup semi loss today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1067,190],"tags":[1254,1066,319],"class_list":["post-6511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carabao-cup","category-chelsea","tag-adductor-injury","tag-carabao-cup","tag-cole-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6511","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=6511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}