Enzo Maresca compares Romeo Lavia to a world class right back | OneFootball

Chelsea had a wave of injuries at the start of this campaign, but things are gradually getting back under control as we head towards Christmas.

In his presser today, Enzo Maresca spoke about one of his vulnerable stars, Romeo Lavia.

Maresca compares Romeo Lavia to his captain

Romeo Lavia on the ball against LAFC. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

“The main target for Romeo is now to be fit. Don’t get any injuries. For me, in this moment, Romeo is where Reece [James] was more or less one year ago in terms of being back after a long time,” Maresca explained.

“We need to manage him all the time. The target for him is to keep him fit. We need to be very careful with him because we don’t want him to be out again and finally he can enjoy being a footballer.”

Asked for a little more detail on managing Lavia, Maresca outlined a little more about the midfielder’s pathway:

“The Forest game, we planned 45 minutes for him. Ajax, he played one hour or 70 minutes. He played well vs Tottenham. We are happy with Romeo. I would like to have him on the pitch always but it’s my duty to protect him.”

It doesn’t tell us much about tomorrow, which is a useful game for players like Romeo to get some minutes in their legs. The most likely scenario is that he starts tomorrow and is taken off in the second half, then is available to come on as a sub at the weekend. However it’s also possible, if Maresca wants to start him against Wolves, that we see the reverse of that.

In other news…

Maresca had a few other issues to deal with today, including Liam Delap, who should feature tomorrow for the first time since his embarrassing red a couple of weeks ago.

Also in this press conference, Maresca revealed that Reece James is now fit enough to play 3 games in a week – although that doesn’t mean we’re expecting to see it anytime soon.