“The intention is…” – Maresca explains Chelsea’s bizarre transfer policy for final week of January | OneFootball

Chelsea’s game against Man City is coming up tomorrow evening, and there’s no question that the Blues are heavily stretched in central midfield.

Romeo Lavia is out injured, surprise surprise, and Enzo Fernandez missed the game on Monday night with a medical problem.

While the Argentine is likely to return for the game tomorrow, he’s not going to be 100%. Moises Caicedo has been playing a ridiculous amount of minutes to cover for his injured colleagues, and in the press conference today Enzo Maresca was asked whether he would consider buying a player in this final week of January to help out.

The coach denied his team was thin in midfield at all:

“No [we won’t be looking to bring someone in]. We have in this moment, I think we have enough players to cover that situation with Moi [Caicedo], with Enzo, and in the last game Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] played there. So in this moment, the intention is not to go for one more midfielder.”

It’s an extremely hopeful way of looking at the situation. We’ve got one player fit and capable of playing as a number 6. Enzo is half fit and half capable of doing it. Dewsbury-Hall is not really the right profile at all. Lavia clearly just can’t be relied upon. Why on earth wouldn’t they recall someone like Lesley Ugochukwu to help out?

Palmer update brings some positive feeling

Enzo Maresca with Cole Palmer after a win over Aston Villa. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

There was at least a positive update on Cole Palmer, who was quite clearly playing while hurt on Monday night:

“He is better, he is better. He did an unbelievable effort to play against Wolves and he is getting better.”

Given the opposition, and given how weakened other parts of our team are, we may well need Cole to produce some of his customary magic if we want to have a chance of winning this one.