Chelsea: Enzo Maresca reveals Wesley Fofana could miss rest of season in major injury blow

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·3 de enero de 2025

Chelsea: Enzo Maresca reveals Wesley Fofana could miss rest of season in major injury blow

Fofana is facing a battle to return from hamstring injury before end of campaign

Wesley Fofana is facing a “very long time” on the sidelines with a hamstring injury, with Enzo Maresca admitting the defender could miss the rest of the season.

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The Chelsea defender has been out since the start of December after coming off against Aston Villa, the latest in a long line of injury problems he has suffered since arriving at Stamford Bridge.

Fofana, who signed from Leicester in a £70million deal in the summer of 2022, missed the entirety of last season after rupturing his ACL and also saw his debut campaign heavily disrupted by a serious knee injury.

In all, he has played just 32 times for Chelsea in two-and-a-half years and his latest absence is compounded by the fact that Maresca expects fellow centre-back Benoit Badiashile to be out for at least another month.

“Unfortunately, Wes will be out for a very long time,” Maresca said at his pre-match press conference on Friday ahead of the trip to face Crystal Palace.

“Benoit will be out at least until February. The only two big updates are on Wes and Benoit, that both will be out a long time.”

On Fofana, Maresca added: “Unfortunately he could be out for the season, yeah. We don’t know exactly. He could be out for part of the season.”

The 24-year-old has not undergone surgery on the injury, but Maresca did not rule out the possibility that it could still be required.

The Blues left Fofana out of their squad for the Conference League group stage in a bid to managed his workload but Maresca may now have to consider going into the transfer market in search of a replacement this month.

“We'll see,” he said. “Now the focus is on tomorrow's game, that is an important game like the rest, so the focus is just about tomorrow, but for sure these two players they're going to be out for a long time, so we'll see.”

Fofana had established a promising partnership with Levi Colwill at the heart of Chelsea’s backline and Maresca admitted that his absence is having an impact on the way he is able top set his side up.

“I said many times that I'm in love with Wes,” he explained. “I was in love with Wes, also because Wes is that kind of defender that gives you the chance to press and be aggressive and to leave him one-vs-one.

“We did exactly the same when Wes was injured with Benoit Badiachili, one-vs-one with [Dominic] Solanke [against Tottenham] on the pitch, and they can deal with that. It's very difficult to find that kind of defender, but now unfortunately both are injured, we are trying to find different solutions. For sure, for us Wes is a huge loss.”

There is more positive news for Chelsea, with Romeo Lavia “very close” to making his return to first-team action.

Reece James is also in line to feature against Palace on Saturday, in what would be his first appearance since early November.

“He is back,” Maresca said. “In the last game, he was with us in the squad but the plan was not to give him minutes.

“Tomorrow we can give him minutes. Hopefully he can get minutes very soon.”