Maresca anxiously waits on key Chelsea trio after worrying injury update vs Benfica | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca is sweating on the fitness of several Chelsea players ahead of their Champions League tie against Benfica on Tuesday night.

Chelsea welcome former manager Jose Mourinho to Stamford Bridge as they look to claim their first win of the Champions League campaign.

Maresca's side suffered a 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich in matchday one and will be keen to bounce back from Saturday's loss to Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League.

They are already without the likes of Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Dario Essugo, Cole Palmer and Liam Delap due to injury, with Benoit Badiashile and Romeo Lavia returning to action on the weekend - a welcome sight for the Blues.

IMAGO / Laci Perenyi

Amidst the tight turnaround between Brighton and Benfica, Maresca is yet to be certain on the availability of his squad, with several Chelsea players being assessed and late decisions will be made over their involvement on Tuesday night.

The Chelsea head coach delivered an update on the club's team news prior to their afternoon session at the club's Cobham training ground.

Maresca singled out Moises Caicedo, Andrey Santos and Joao Pedro as potential doubts, revealing: "We need to maintain levels for sure because the Champions League requires high levels. As you said, in this moment, we unfortunately have many players out for injury.

IMAGO / Martin Dalton

"This afternoon we're going to assess Moises Caicedo, Joao Pedro and Andrey Santos. They are all players unfortunately for us with some small problems. So we'll see if tomorrow they're going to be available.

"But we are, for sure, in this moment we have injuries but we have a squad enough in this moment to try to replace the injuries we have."

It's clear that Chelsea are dealing with numerous fitness issues across the squad. Maresca faces the difficult task of protecting his players while still fielding the strongest possible team. In doing so, he risks further setbacks - but at this stage, he has little choice.