Enzo Maresca reveals plan for Chelsea trio in bid to avoid more injuries | OneFootball

Blues taking care to try and stem flow of fitness setbacks after injury-plagued season so far

Selection issues: Enzo Maresca remains without a number of key players as Chelsea’s injury problems continue

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Enzo Maresca has revealed the measures Chelsea have put in place in order to manage the minutes of three players, as the club try to avoid more long-term injuries.

Liam Delap is expected to return in either November or December, Benoit Badiashile is sidelined until December, Dario Essugo is likely out until 2026, Cole Palmer is not expected back for another six weeks and Levi Colwill will miss the majority of the season.

Maresca revealed after Saturday’s 3-0 win at Nottingham Forest that the plan was always to hand only 45 minutes to Lavia at the City Ground, and the same amount of time to fellow midfielder Moises Caicedo, who did not travel for international duty with Ecuador.

The Chelsea head coach also explained that Fofana was not named in his squad in Nottingham because the club wish to “protect” him.

“We already knew that Romeo was not going to play 90 minutes,” Maresca said. “Romeo's plan was 45 minutes. Moi [Caicedo] cannot play 90 minutes, so the decision was to start with Moi or start with Romeo.

“[The absence of] Wes is just a way to try to protect him a little bit. For me, Wes is the same as Josh [Acheampong]. I said many times that I really like Wes and he's going to play games. But it was just to protect. He will be available for Ajax.”

The Italian added: “I think what we need to do with Wes, with Romeo, with Reece, is we need to do what we have done with Reece.

“Now Reece is playing three games a week, he's playing almost every game. He's fit, he's good. And we need to try to do exactly the same with Wes and with Romeo.

“I would love to have Romeo, Wes and Reece on the pitch every game, but it's not possible. We need to manage them. And the main target this season is try to rotate and keep all of them fit.”