Chelsea have just beaten Aston Villa 3-0 at home – a lovely way to keep up our strong form and our charge towards the top 4.
There were good performances all around, great goal from Cole Palmer and a second in two games for Enzo Fernandez; but one black spot – a second half injury for centre back Wesley Fofana.
We feared that we wouldn’t get much info from Enzo Maresca after the game, but the manager obliged with some details. He confirmed the injury was to the hamstring, said it was “bad news” and added that Fofana would be a “big loss.”
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Wesley Fofana looks broken as he is subbed off against Leicester.
Jadon Sancho in training, fairly generic.
Wesley Fofana and Levi Colwill applaud the away fans.
The time frame he put on it was four or five weeks – which seems about standard for a nasty hamstring tweak. Given Fofana’s recent injury record, we’d imagine that his recovery will be as cautious as possible.
The good news is that Fofana’s spirits were high enough that he was able to get a picture with Cole Palmer on the pitch after the game, with a big smile on his face as you can see below.
An injured Wesley Fofana smiles with Cole Palmer. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)
An injured Wesley Fofana smiles with Cole Palmer. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)
Badiashile “next man up” to take Fofana’s place
As we saw today when Fofana went off, the natural move is to bring in Benoit Badiashile to take his place. Just a few short weeks ago we would have considered that a major downgrade and a worrying development. But Badiashile did well when stepping in against Leicester last week, again in midweek against Heidenheim, and he didn’t put a foot wrong when replacing Fofana today.
So it’s not as scary a prospect as it had been – in fact it’s a great chance for the Frenchman to show what he can do after a really tough spell where he’s been written off by a lot of fans and has been linked with moves elsewhere.