Maresca delivers nasty double injury blow for Chelsea – two mystery problems continue

Enzo Maresca takes his press conference. (Image: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

Chelsea are pretty injury free at the moment, with just one position causing issues.

Reece James is always injured, as he is right now. So we brought Malo Gusto to the club a year ago to help fill in. Sadly, Gusto has managed to hurt himself while James is out, and once again it sounds like we’re going to see Axel Disasi toiling away on the right of defence as we did against Bournemouth.

Malo Gusto trains at Cobham.

Coach delivery more bad news over problem position

In his press conference this afternoon, Maresca admitted he was in the dark over James’ status:

“We do not have an idea, at the moment. In terms of injuries in the past, we always hope we can find solutions. In this case it has been very unlucky because we planned to change him after 65 minutes and he got injured in the 62nd or 63rd.”

The other piece of news was a lot shorter, although just as much of a gut punch:

“Malo is not fit, no.”

That one is very disappointing. Sadly with James we’ve come to expect him to get injured a lot, and for those injuries to drag on. But in the case of Gusto it looked a minor problem to begin with – and then he had the whole international break to rest – and he’s since had another full week.

We’re surprised he isn’t back, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season. We wonder if Maresca will finally show some stones and give academy star Josh Acheampong some minutes?