Enzo Maresca explains how many minutes Cole Palmer will play today | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has just spoken ahead of this afternoon’s titanic Chelsea Arsenal clash in the Premier League.

The Chelsea boss spoke briefly to Sky Sports ahead of kick off, with the big subject to discuss the Premier League start for Estevao Willian, who scored in midweek in the Champions League and gets another chance today.

Maresca on Estevao’s Premier League start

Estevao celebrates his first Champions League goal. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

“We had four or five days from the Barcelona game. We are trying to recover energy so they are all fresh and ready.

He also chatted about Cole Palmer’s return. The attacking midfielder is on the bench for the first time since September, and should be ready to start next week:

“It’s a big boost especially for him, then for the team, for us, for the fans and everyone. We are a better team with Cole. How many minutes [he will play] depends on the game.”

Clearly, if we’re winning 2-0 with ten minutes to go, Maresca isn’t going to bring him on. If we’re 2-0 down, however, he could get a decent chunk.

On Arsenal in general, Maresca explained how good today’s opposition are.

“They are very good. They are defending top, you struggle to score goals against them but we are going to try our best.”

On the subject of whether a win today could put Chelsea into a title race, Maresca said:

“We are still end of November, we have so many games to play, then anything can happen.”

In other news…

Estevao isn’t the only interesting player given a start by Enzo Maresca today, you can see the full team lineup here.

Cole Palmer could start today, but even if he doesn’t he will be back in soon, and that means someone is going to miss out. We speculate about who that could be, here.