Roméo Lavia is the least injured player in this picture
Cole Palmer and Levi Colwill missed today’s friendly against Juventus, but thankfully that was mostly a precautionary decision, as manager Xabi Alonso confirmed afterwards. Crucially, it sounds like neither player is dealing with any actual soft tissue injury, like a muscle or a tendon.
“They had a few, not injuries, discomforts. Cole with a whack and Levi as well, so no point to take today’s risk and hopefully they will be fine for Saturday. [For Palmer] it’s a whack, a contact injury that he had against Spurs. So it’s not [a recurrence of the groin issue].”
-Xabi Alonso; source: Football.London
Palmer struggled with a groin injury all last season — his poor form eventually costing him a place at the World Cup, even — while Colwill was out with an ACL for all but the final few weeks, so it’s certainly understandable and good that we’re being very cautious with them. If we are to get back to the levels we want to be at, we’re going to need both players to be fully fit, fully confident, and performing well as we know they can.