Breaking: Enzo Maresca confirms Chelsea’s star player to miss 3 weeks or more | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has just taken his press conference ahead of Chelsea’s game against Brighton tomorrow, and the first thing everyone wanted to know was about Cole Palmer’s status after the attacker limped off against Manchester United.

Maresca confirmed that the plan was to shut him down for a few weeks:

“We decided to protect a little bit Cole in terms of him not getting a worse injuries. So we decided to rest him for the next two, three weeks, probably until international break, just to see if with that rest he can be able to recover 100% and to be completely fit after the international break,” Maresca explained.

Palmer hoping to dodge surgery on chronic groin problem

Andrey Santos comes on for Cole Palmer. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

The next question was naturally if Palmer would need surgery – Maresca has denied this.

“No, I don’t think he needs surgery. It’s just a matter of managing his pain and his groin. The amount of games is something that can happen. So this is the reason why we try to be conservative with him to give him rest and hopefully he can be 100% fit after the international break.”

Chelsea will be forced to find new solutions with star man out

Well, there you go. We didn’t want it to be true, and clearly neither did those in charge, but they’ve now accepted that Palmer needs a rest, and that’s for the best. We’d rather be without our star player for a month now than for potentially longer if he continues to make his problem worse.

The question is how the team cope without the only creative spark they’ve shown this season so far.

It will be a tough period – but perhaps it will be good for us in the long run, as it forces Maresca and his players to figure out some solutions in terms of team play, rather than just waiting for Palmer to do something magical.