Chelsea may be tempted to pull Cole Palmer out of the firing line and allow him to rest for two to four weeks as he battles a groin injury.
The Blues have been carefully managing Palmer’s issue since the start of the new campaign with Enzo Maresca stating on multiple occasions his player is being assessed ‘day by day’
The England international started Chelsea’s first game of the new Premier League season against Crystal Palace but missed subsequent wins over West Ham United and Fulham.
He made his return off the bench against Brentford and was back in the starting XI in Chelsea’s Champions League opener against Bayern Munich, getting on the score sheet in both games.
Palmer kept his place in the side last Saturday against Manchester United but was forced off just 20 minutes into a chaotic first-half at Old Trafford.
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Palmer was not involved in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup win over Lincoln City, a game where he would have likely been rested anyway. It came as Maresca explained a meeting with the club’s medical staff will be held to determine the best course of action to help him overcome the issue.
Chelsea’s ‘day-by-day’ tactic may no longer be working. An alternative option is for the club to pull Palmer out of the team for as many as four weeks with Stephen Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs which specialises in injury welfare and performance analytics, suggesting that approach could now be considered.
Surgery is a third option but would represent a major swerve given the work that has been put in by Chelsea’s medical staff so far.
‘It is very difficult to say how the next few weeks look,’ Smith told Metro. ‘Chelsea will certainly be looking at different options.
‘One will be if they decide to try and keep managing this issue proactively the way they have been doing and try to keep pushing from a rehabilitation perspective to get him back out quickly onto the pitch.
‘Or, do they take a little more time. Take him out of the side for a number of weeks, two, three or even four weeks, to give him some time to rest, to get some really decent recovery and rehabilitation time under his belt to create some real strength and resistance there (where the injury is).
‘Or, should they cut their losses and do something a little more drastic but with the potential to have a higher probability of solving the problem once and for all.
‘All three of those options will be in the conversations going on at Chelsea and I think it will totally depend on his symptoms and how bad they are. He will be wholly involved in that process too. Nobody will be better placed to talk about how he is feeling and what it is like day to day than Cole himself.’
Maresca has also this week played down the possibility of surgery if these issues continue to linger with Smith agreeing such a move would be ‘like going from 0 to 100.’
‘These injuries can be less acute and are not necessarily something you can rehab easily like with a hamstring injury or a calf injury,’ Smith explained. ‘They can be much more chronic, causing a lot of inflammation and a lot of pain when athletes are running and can be slower from a rehabilitation perspective.
‘I would suggest Chelsea might still consider it a minor issue at the moment. I would suggest the surgery route is probably unlikely because at this stage, it would be like going from 0 to 100. They have believed this issue could be managed conservatively to the point where he was able to be involved in the last number of weeks.
‘If that approach is not working the next step is to say, “let’s take him out of a couple of games to give him a little bit more time”. Swinging the pendulum the other side and going down the surgery route is probably unlikely at this stage, unless further damage has occurred.’