“Probably” – Maresca surprises journalists with update on injured star | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has just taken his press conference ahead of Chelsea’s game against Newcastle tomorrow, and as always he started with some team news:

“We are good, yeah. The ones that we left out for Cardiff, they are okay. We have probably Liam Delap and Estevao Willian, probably both available for next game against Aston Villa. That is good news. And then Romeo [Lavia] is still out. Levi is still out.”

That’s all as expected – except the interesting news that Delap, who was expected to be out for a few weeks yet with a shoulder injury picked up against Bournemouth a couple of weeks, could be back next week, ahead of schedule.

Maresca says striker “probably” ready for early return

Liam Delap goes on with an injured shoulder.

Asked for confirmation, of whether Delap would be back for the Villa game, Maresca said “probably,” and was then asked if that was a surprise.

“Yeah. We said since his injury that we don’t know exactly, we didn’t know exactly for how long, but he’s progressing very well.”

Certainly that shows it wasn’t a broken collarbone, and may not even have been a dislocation, just a painful sprain. Either way, it’s great to have him back soon as we go through this busy winter period.

The fact that it’s an upper body injury should mean he’s been able to keep his fitness levels high, and we can expect him to slot back in as soon as he’s given clearance.

In other news…

In his comments on the Enzo Maresca situation, Jamie Carragher claimed the likely cause of the coach’s unhappiness was the situation around Levi Colwill in the summer.

Carragher had already spoken about Maresca’s comments earlier in the programme, making it clear that it was obvious who he was talking about when he said he felt a lack of support.