Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has confirmed Cole Palmer will face a late fitness test ahead of a possible return from injury against Brentford on Saturday.
Palmer has missed the last two games for Chelsea as a result of a groin problem which also forced him to withdraw from international duty with England, but he was spotted in a number of training photos shared by Chelsea earlier this week.
An Instagram post in the build-up to the game, captioned with the brief update “soon back”, pointed to an imminent return for Palmer, but Maresca insisted no decision has been made on the midfielder’s involvement just yet.
“Cole took part in the session yesterday for the first time, not the entire session,” Maresca told his Friday news conference. “We have one more session this afternoon and we are going to try with him to see if he’s OK, otherwise he will be out tomorrow.”
Maresca added: “He is recovering from an injury, it’s not managing him, it’s recovering from an injury. When he is available, we need to manage him because of the amount of games.”
The Blues boss went on to offer a return timeline of between 10 and 12 weeks for striker Liam Delap, whose hamstring injury was not deemed to be serious enough to require surgery.
“The only No. 9 is [Marc] Guiu and João [Pedro] can also play there. Against Fulham, we used Tyrique [George] as a No. 9, so we can also think about him,” Maresca explained.
Levi Colwill remains sidelined with a long-term ACL injury, while there are fears summer signing Dário Essugo could miss a large part of the season after undergoing surgery on his own issue. But Chelsea are believed to have welcomed both Benoît Badiashile and Roméo Lavia back to training in midweek.
The only additional doubts come from Chelsea’s South American cohort. Moisés Caicedo has returned late from Ecuador duty and will face a fitness check of his own, while Maresca confirmed there are “question marks” about Brazilian trio João Pedro, Andrey Santos and Estêvão after a gruelling defeat to Bolivia in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cole Palmer Injury: Enzo Maresca Reveals Return Decision for Brentford Trip.