Chelsea have decided to do what they should have done a week ago, and give Cole Palmer a rest until his chronic groin problem has had a chance to heal fully.
Palmer’s problem is long running, but seemed to flare up in the warmup ahead of the West Ham game earlier this month. He missed that game and the international break with England. But he then played 45 minutes against Brentford two weeks ago, 97 minutes against Bayern Munich in that midweek, and lasted just 20 against Man U last weekend before being taken off hurt.
Chelsea’s desperate search for Palmer solutions
Enzo Maresca says he will now miss a couple of weeks, potentially only returning after the October international break. We’re all in favour of that – we’d rather drop points now than lose him for the season. If only they’d listened to us before.
Maresca also insists that his team can find “solutions” without Palmer, but that’s what we’re more worried about. Chelsea have scored just 4 goals from open play this season, and that’s with Palmer playing most games. Without him, they’re going to just be taking corners and hoping for the best.
Palmer has 24 goals and assists combined since the start of last season, and those goal contributions have earned Chelsea 18 points. As you can see in the worrying graphic from Sky Sports below, the numbers with and without Palmer are stark: