By Dominic King,Editor,Kieran Gill,Luke Power

Copyright dailymail

Cole Palmer was hooked after 21 minutes against Manchester United and is likely to be excluded tonight, prompting a big question for Chelsea fans: what’s going on?

He missed their games against West Ham and Fulham, but scored off the bench against Brentford and scored after starting against Bayern Munich.

Maresca insists they are taking each day as it comes with his groin problem, but seemed optimistic that he won’t have to go under the knife.

‘The medical staff, they didn’t mention to me about surgery (up to) today,’ Maresca said. ‘I don’t know if in the next days or the next weeks, but I don’t think so, to be honest.

“We need to protect Cole for sure 100%,” he added.

‘The solution with Cole, I don’t know, now we have a meeting with the medical staff and we decide the best solution for him.

‘But it’s also a kind of injury that is not like black and white. It’s an injury that someday you can be better. It’s not that you have pain and tomorrow disappear.

‘Sometimes you can be better, sometimes you can be worse. That’s why we need to manage day by day.