Insider makes big denial about Cole Palmer incident after Liverpool win | OneFootball

Kieran Gill’s Chelsea Confidential for this week has a whole section on Cole Palmer, as you might expect.

Palmer return timeline fleshed out

Cole Palmer with a Chelsea logo. (Photo by Harry Murphy/Getty Images)

The attacking midfielder is missing England duty with a persistent groin issue, and now looks a doubt to return in time to face Nottingham Forest next week too. Gill’s prognosis is even worse:

“I’m told it will be weeks – not days, not months, but weeks – and so we are looking at November as the likeliest return for Palmer. Whether before or after the international break scheduled for that month depends on when his injury has healed.

“The diagnosis is that Palmer has a strained groin, but it is not severe enough to require surgery, thankfully.”

Two incidents point wrong way for Chelsea

There have been two notable moments on the pitch in the Palmer groin injury saga. The first came in the defeat to Bayern Munich, where Palmer was seen wincing and putting his hand to the affected area are being played for 98 minutes.

It seemed that was indeed the moment he really hurt it, as it was only after that that Maresca started speaking openly about it.

The other moment was on Saturday after the win over Liverpool when Jorrel Hato jumped on the attacker in celebration – and got a dirty look.

“No, Hato did not aggravate Palmer’s injury,” Gill writes.

“We all saw the edited clips doing the rounds on social media after Chelsea’s win over Liverpool, but they were a tad mischievous – the full footage showed Palmer smiling with Hato afterwards. It was an innocuous incident after a big win.”

Well, we’re not sure about innocuous. We doubt he actually aggravated it – but the panicked reaction from Palmer was worrying in itself as we try to convince ourselves he’ll be back soon.