Chelsea have to find “solutions” without 24 G/A superstar for next month | OneFootball

Chelsea have decided to do what they should have done a week ago, and give Cole Palmer a rest until his chronic groin problem has had a chance to heal fully.

Palmer’s problem is long running, but seemed to flare up in the warmup ahead of the West Ham game earlier this month. He missed that game and the international break with England. But he then played 45 minutes against Brentford two weeks ago, 97 minutes against Bayern Munich in that midweek, and lasted just 20 against Man U last weekend before being taken off hurt.

Chelsea’s desperate search for Palmer solutions

Enzo Maresca says he will now miss a couple of weeks, potentially only returning after the October international break. We’re all in favour of that – we’d rather drop points now than lose him for the season. If only they’d listened to us before.

Maresca also insists that his team can find “solutions” without Palmer, but that’s what we’re more worried about. Chelsea have scored just 4 goals from open play this season, and that’s with Palmer playing most games. Without him, they’re going to just be taking corners and hoping for the best.

Palmer has 24 goals and assists combined since the start of last season, and those goal contributions have earned Chelsea 18 points. As you can see in the worrying graphic from Sky Sports below, the numbers with and without Palmer are stark:

Chelsea with and without Cole Palmer.

Maresca scrambling for non-Palmer solution to goalscoring

Chelsea’s run of games without Palmer starts tomorrow against Brighton, and we’re already interested to see what Maresca comes up with to cope. We’ve suggested a few options in our piece here.

Brighton and Liverpool at least are going to come out and attack us. Jose Mourinho’s Benfica are surely coming to Stamford Bridge to sit deep and defend, and it’s hard to think who will break them down without Palmer there.