Enzo Maresca’s embargoed quotes from Friday’s press conference show that he was already concerned about the effects of the Club World Cup piled on top of a long season for the fitness of his players.
Chelsea’s top players already suffering most
“I don’t think that it is random [there have been injuries already]. Our three players with the most minutes last year were Levi [Colwill], Cole [Palmer] and Moises [Caicedo],” the Chelsea boss had said.
“Levi is injured , Cole too, and Moi today only had his first training session since the West Ham game. That is where things are this season. It is not random – it is the amount of games. Look at Manchester City last year, they lost Rodri after two or three games. He was a player that had the most minutes for them.
“We are going to have problems this season for sure because of last season. But it’s about how we can adapt and get players to recover.”
Maresca fears proved correct one day later
How right he was. Just 24 hours later Liam Delap was pulling up with a pulled hamstring.
While Delap wasn’t here for the long Conference League campaign, he was at the Club World Cup and has had the same disrupted non-preseason as the rest of the main group. In the wake of his injury, Maresca said even more about his concerns:
“I said before the season started that unfortunately I don’t have any answer, because it’s the first time that you have a competition during the summer, so you don’t know. I don’t know. Not me, not any sports scientist, not any doctor can help us to say we’re going to have this problem or this problem. We don’t know. It’s something new and unfortunately it happened. I said yesterday in the press conference, I think it’s not random that Levi [Colwill], Moi [Caicedo], Cole [Palmer], today Liam. It is what it is.”
