“Just because he can have dinner…” – Maresca gives hilarious answer to question about key player’s fitness | OneFootball

With a tight turnaround between last night’s home win over FC Noah in the UEFA Europa Conference League and Sunday’s clash with Arsenal, Enzo Maresca tagged his pre-match presser for the latter onto the end of last night’s post match.

Looking ahead to the game against the Gunners, there was only one thing on everyone’s lips – Cole Palmer. The attacker was slashed across the knee by Lisandro Martinez in the latter stages of last week’s game against Manchester United, and was visibly limping afterwards.

Palmer was in attendance at Stamford Bridge last night signing autographs and looking relaxed, although that doesn’t tell you much about what’s going on internally. There’s no doubt that Martinez did some damage, and it remains crazy he didn’t see a straight red for a moment that was quite clearly a violent act born of frustration.

Maresca’s update on the attacker’s fitness last night was positive, if cautious, and referenced the fact that journalists had seen him at the Bridge tucking in:

“Cole is getting better, but because he can walk and have dinner doesn’t mean he is completely fit,” the manager explained.

“He is getting better and we still have two days to prepare for the game. Hopefully, we can have him for a session – at least on Saturday – and then we take a decision.”

Lisandro Martinez gets a yellow after slicing Cole Palmer’s knee. (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Cole Palmer could miss Sunday

Without too much knowledge on the situation, we’d say it’s very unlikely that Palmer misses Sunday’s game. To us, it smells like Maresca is just playing some games with Arsenal here. While the flash of studs the attacker got was nasty and probably very sore, it won’t have done any deep or long lasting damage, and a full week of rest will be more than enough to get him right.

If anything it’s listing Arsenal who have the major injury concerns to worry about for the game.