“We will see” – Maresca admits to big hope for star Chelsea player’s future | OneFootball

There was good injury news all around from Enzo Maresca in his press conference today as he revealed that a group of key players are returning.

Cole Palmer, Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke are all back, and all seem likely to start against Spurs on Thursday night. They join Wesley Fofana and Benoit Badiashile, who started to be eased back in in the games before the international break.

Back in January we saw Reece James make his latest injury return following a hamstring injury he picked up in November, and on that front it’s so far so good. He’s just played his longest run of games (8) in some years, and was even called up to the England squad in this international break, with whom he scored a superb free kick.

Given that, it would seem (to the very naive and hopeful, at least) that James has put his injuries behind him. Maresca was asked today whether he now considers James to be fit to play every game:

“We still need to manage Reece. The reason why is because you know his history probably better than me. You need to be careful with him in this moment. We want him fit until the end so we will manage him until the end and then we will see in the future.”

James will never be “normal” – but that shouldn’t be a problem for Chelsea

Reece James celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Copenhagen. (Photo by Patrik Lundin/Getty Images)

Given James’ injury history, we wouldn’t expect him to be treated without caution ever again in his career. He will always have to be managed – but that’s OK. As long as we always have a solid alternative, there should be simply no need for him to be consistently playing more than one game a week.

We wouldn’t want any of our star players doing that, even those without any injury record. It’s a squad game and we’ve certainly got enough players