Chelsea have suffered just an injury setback ahead of their UEFA Champions League fixture against Qarabag at the Tofik Bahramov Stadium. Enzo Maresca has provided an update on winger Pedro Neto, who will not travel with the team but it should not be serious for the Portuguese winger.
Chelsea trained on Tuesday morning in preparation for the match in Azerbaijan, and Pedro Neto was absent from the training session. The Portuguese attacker was replaced by Estevao in the dying moments of the Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs ended the 1-0 home loss to Chelsea as fans and players all were very unhappy with Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence apologising to manager Thomas Frank as they appeared to snub the Tottenham boss as they left the field after an abject performance vs their London rivals.
What updates did Maresca deliver?
Maresca addressed the media ahead of the crunch European game and provided updates on several fronts related to the Blues.
Pedro Neto is not struggling with injury, as per the Chelsea boss, but rather being rested as a precaution, considering the long season that awaits the Stamford Bridge side. Maresca has been quoted as saying by Football.London –
“Not a problem, just a small issue. We will try to protect him. He is not involved in tomorrow’s game.”
The Italian boss also shed light on Chelsea’s congested fixture list. Maresca revealed that he plans to tackle this challenging problem by rotating his squad.
The Blues return to the national capital on Friday morning and are scheduled to play their weekend league fixture on Saturday evening. Here is what Maresca went on to say –
“It’s an important game because it can give us three wins in a row in the Champions League. For sure, we need to rotate some of the players because I think we come back in London at 6am on Friday and then we have a game on Saturday. We will try to adapt and do our best.”
Other injury updates
Maresca confirmed that Pedro Neto was the sole player unavailable for selection against Qarabag. However, the Italian gaffer provided fresh updates on Chelsea’s injured duo of Cole Palmer and Benoit Badiashile. Palmer and Badiashile are on course to make their return to action late in November ahead of two vital clashes against Barcelona and Arsenal. Here is what Maresca stated –
“We hope so but with Cole, we try to schedule the beginning and then we need to review that. We go day by day with Cole. He is not taking any sessions with the team. We have Benoit Badiashile that can probably be available after the international break and for us, that is huge news.”
Chelsea will certainly be braced by the return of Palmer and Badiashile, but will, for the time being, focus their energy on the two crunch fixtures at hand this week against Qarabag and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
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