Chelsea’s best player may not return until late November – panic as Blues look to keep season alive | OneFootball

When Cole Palmer’s injury issue was originally announced by Enzo Maresca a few weeks ago, the prognosis from the Chelsea manager was that his key player would be back after the international break.

Well, it’s now after the international break, so of course the first question of the coach in today’s press conference was on whether Palmer would be available. It’s not good news.

Maresca “wrong” about Palmer recovery

“I was wrong [in my prediction]. Unfortunately he needs to be out probably six more weeks.”

That’s devastating news for a team which is really lacking its creative leader.

However Maresca still insists that no surgery is needed, which is some good news:

“Yes, absolutely [no surgery is needed]. We try just to protect Cole as much as we can and the most important thing is that… unfortunately the medical staff, they are not magicians, they never know that you probably need six weeks. We hope that six weeks, they are enough, but it’s a problem that we need to see step by step, week after week, but for sure he’s going to be okay.”

You can see Maresca speaking in the clip embedded here:

Six week absence includes training time say sources

Kieran Gill’s Tweet about Cole Palmer’s recovery time.

Other sources like Nizaar Kinsella of the BBC have since confirmed that the 6 weeks means the time until he can return to actually playing, rather than just return to training, which is a slight improvement.

As it stands, Palmer will return at the end of November, when we have a huge double header against Arsenal and Barcelona after the international break. It would be incredible to have Palmer back for those games, and if he’s been training for a few weeks before even better.

But they would still be huge matches to throw him in for without any match fitness after what will by that point be a long time out.