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Cole Palmer is targeting a return for Chelsea’s Champions League showdown with Barcelona as Enzo Maresca’s side travel to Azerbaijan to face Qarabag without him.
Chelsea have coped well without Palmer since he injured his groin two months ago, winning seven of their nine games played in their playmaker’s absence.
The 23-year-old Englishman is not yet training, but there is hope that he can be back in time for their Barca clash on November 25 and the Premier League visit of Arsenal five days later.
Speaking before flying 2,500 miles to Baku, where the team will face Qarabag and plan to stay on English time, Maresca said: ‘We hope so (that Palmer will play Barcelona).
‘With Cole, we tried to plan, we tried to schedule, at the beginning. Then we need to review that. In this moment we go day by day with Cole. He's not taking any session with the team. I would like to have Cole here tomorrow. I would like to have Cole back early. We are a better team with Cole. Unfortunately for us, he's out, he's injured, but for sure we want him back very soon.’
After opening their Champions League campaign with a loss to Bayern Munich, Chelsea have since beaten Benfica and Ajax. Pedro Neto will not travel to face Qarabag due to a ‘small issue’. He skipped their last training session at Cobham, meaning Estevao Willian may start on the right instead.
Cole Palmer has been sidelined by injury for some time but is set to return to action in Europe
The talismanic midfielder is believed to be gearing up to return to the pitch against Barcelona
‘It's an important game because it can give us three wins in a row in the Champions League,’ Maresca continued. ‘For sure, we need to rotate some of the players because we'll arrive back in London on Thursday morning, 6am, and then Saturday we have a game. It's a demanding schedule but we're going to try to adapt.’
Chelsea have carefully managed Reece James’ return to injury and are looking to do the same with Romeo Lavia, with Maresca saying: ‘He (James) is fit, 100 per cent. Now, yes, I think he's going to play three games in a week.
‘At this moment, Romeo is where Reece was more or less one year ago in terms of back after a long time. We need to manage him every minute, every day, every second.
‘The target with him is just to keep him fit. He's training with us. He's OK. He's 100 per cent fit. But we need to be very careful with him because we don't want him to be out again and finally he can enjoy being a football player.’
