Enzo Maresca rules Chelsea talisman Cole Palmer out of Cardiff clash | OneFootball

Chelsea will travel to Wales to take on Cardiff City in the League Cup quarter-final on Tuesday night, looking to punch their ticket to a third semi-final in 18 months under Enzo Maresca.

The Blues are overwhelming favourites to come away from Cardiff City Stadium with a win, but Maresca is also wary about complacency from his side.

To make matters worse, Maresca has confirmed that Chelsea talisman Cole Palmer will sit out the tie as he continues to recover from a groin issue.

The Italian tactician is keen to manage Palmer’s workload, so he is expected to watch the contest from the sidelines.

Chelsea punched their ticket to the quarter-final with a narrow win against Wolverhampton Wanderers in an entertaining seven-goal thriller at Molineux.

They take on Cardiff with a spot in the final four up for grabs, but Maresca isn’t willing to take risks with a player who has only recently returned to the fold.

“I’ve already said many times in plenty of press conferences that we have a number of players that need to be protected,” Maresca told the media at Cobham.

“The target is to protect them and manage them. Cole [Palmer] is one of the players who deserves to be protected right now.”

Maresca also confirmed that Palmer’s omission from the Cardiff game is in anticipation of Saturday’s crunch Premier League clash with Newcastle United at St James’ Park.

The 23-year-old helped Chelsea claim a 2-0 win against Everton last time out, netting the opening goal before Malo Gusto wrapped up the points at Stamford Bridge.

Maresca wants to make sure Palmer is in peak physical condition to face Newcastle.

“In this moment, he’s not available to play two games in three days,” Maresca added. “So he won’t be available for tomorrow’s game, but should be fine for the weekend.

“We’re going to make some changes. We’ll see how many, but for sure we have players that in the last twelve or 13 days, they’ve played five games. So they need to probably recover energy.”