Chelsea were forced into a last-second lineup change on Friday night at the London Stadium, with Cole Palmer getting scratched just minutes before kick-off and replaced by young Estêvão. Thankfully, the change didn’t have any negative impact on the outcome — in fact, Estêvão would be named the Player of the Match after setting up Chelsea’s third goal (of five) on the night. Pretty good start to life in the Premier League for the wonderboy.
But Palmer struck a glum figure on the bench, wrapped up in
a big overcoat instead of frolicking around on the pitch against hapless West Ham. He’s not been injured much, if at all since joining Chelsea two years ago. But he’s also played a ton of football in that span, with practically no real break (Club World Cup this summer, Euros last summer), and that sort of relentless workload does tend to catch up with even the most durable players eventually.
Enzo Maresca revealed after the game that Palmer had been dealing with this issue not just throughout the week but last weekend already as well, so perhaps we were ready for the possibility of him not being able to go against the Hammers. But now we’re in full assessment mode, and treating the potential condition very seriously and carefully.
“Cole in the last four or five days was not 100%. Today he tried the warm-up, but he felt something. So we prefer not to take any risk to get worse. And we’ll see in the next hours if it’s something important or not.
“[It’s his] groin. [During] the Palace game, he was not 100%. But he is trying to make a big effort for the club, for the team, for the fans. Tonight again he tried again, but it was not very good.”
-Enzo Maresca; source: Football.London
There are a few scary words in there, including the part where Palmer already tried to play through the injury. You definitely can’t do that with groin strains, you will only make them worse (see also: hamstrings). So hopefully we shut him down in time to avoid a lengthy (and frustrating) recovery process.
