Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea press conference in full – Cole Palmer injury, Filip Jorgensen transfer, & more

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has spoken to the press this morning ahead of the return of Premier League action this weekend.

The Blues take on Burnley away from home in Saturday’s early kick-off, and they’ll be looking to get a good run of results together as they look like outsiders in this season’s title race, despite an inconsistent start.

Every time Chelsea look like they’re making serious progress they seem to take a step backwards, but Maresca will surely benefit from Cole Palmer being back from injury soon.

The Italian tactician discussed that and more as he spoke to the press today.

You can read on for a full transcript of Maresca’s press conference.

He’s not available for tomorrow for sure, Barcelona, for sure, Arsenal, for sure. Unfortunately he had an accident at home two days ago and he hit his toe. It’s nothing important, but for sure he’s not back next week.

We don’t know (how much longer he’ll be out). The only thing we know is that he’s not available for this week, next week.

It can happen. I wake up many times during the night to go to the toilet. I hit my head, my legs, my everything, so it can happen.

Yeah, I said many times that Axel and Raheem [Sterling] are Chelsea players. Axel is helping the second team, he’s helping the younger players. During the international break we had just five, six players here, so we need some second team players. And Axel was part of some session with second team players, but I think it was just one session with us.

At the moment he’s helping second team, he’s working with second team and he’s there with second team. He’s a Chelsea player and he’s with second team.

Raheem again, he’s a Chelsea player and he’s in the same situation.

I spoke with Filip at the beginning of the season and I didn’t speak with Filip in the last days about that. I think all the players that they don’t play a lot or they don’t use to play, they would like to get more minutes, more games, it’s completely normal. But I didn’t speak with Filip.

He’s back from the international team where his coach was, he’s very happy and we are very happy with him.

We said many times that for us Malo is the main player in the way we want him to play. He can play in different positions. You already know that we like players that they can give us, we can be dynamic with them. Malo is one of them and we are very happy with Malo. Personally, since I joined the club, I consider Malo for us a main player.

Yeah, it will be a different game. We know that every game is different. Probably tomorrow we need to use different strategies, different weapons. No doubt that it’s going to be a tough game, especially after the international break at 12 in the morning. It’s always a tricky game and we need to pay attention.

Probably the time that we spent together. We said many times that with more time together we’re going to be better and better. It’s something that we have in the way we want to recover the ball as soon as possible. Sometimes it’s possible, sometimes it’s not possible because the other team do different things. But for sure it’s something that we are getting better at and we can be even better.

He was very close. He was back with us almost with the groin and it’s very good news. And then again, he had this small problem and hopefully it’s nothing important.

The last time I saw him was yesterday morning, and he was without socks, without flip-flops, he was without nothing, I don’t know how to explain it. I did see him in the changing room.

No (he was not limping) not too much, he was working ok. The problem is that it’s a small toe, so the contact with the boots can be painful.

For me personally, Cole is one of our best players and no doubt that he can play in any international team, but then it’s Thomas’ decision.

Moi (Caicedo) came back last night, we haven’t seen him yet, but we’ll see Moi in a while. But it’s good, Benoit [Badiashile] is back, he can be available for tomorrow, that’s great news for us. And then Enzo (Fernandez) and Pedro (Neto), they used the international break to recover a little bit of energy, also to recover from the injury, the problems they had, and they are both available for tomorrow.

Absolutely not. I don’t think that [laughs]. I think that the teammates are better players with Cole playing. I feel much better when Cole is on the pitch, and we all want Cole on the pitch. At the same time, when Cole is not in the pitch, we need to find a solution. The team is doing fantastic, it’s doing very well. Also, I think for any manager it’s nice when you miss a player, but at the end the team still plays in the way we want to play. It’s good, but again, we are better with Cole.

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