Chelsea had a frustrating beginning to 2025 as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Crystal Palace in the first Premier League clash of the new calendar year. The Blues are being troubled by injuries to key defenders, but there has been a positive update on the status of centre-back Wesley Fofana.<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca surprised many by making a shocking comment on the French defender’s current state as he deals with a hamstring injury, with the coach stating<\/a> before the Crystal Palace game: “Unfortunately he [Fofana] could be out for the season, yes. We don’t know exactly for the entire season but he could be out for part of the season.”<\/p>\n Read More: <\/strong>\u2018For Sure He Will Come Back\u2019: Enzo Maresca Responds To \u00a3130K-P\/W Chelsea Star\u2019s Latest Controversy<\/a><\/p>\n Fabrizio Romano (citing L’Equipe) has now reported<\/a> that the 25-year-old is personally confident of his ability to return ahead of schedule from his current issue. It’s also added that Fofana feels that he could be ready to make a return from injury in mid-March or the end of the month to make himself available for the London giants heading into the final stretch of the 2024\/25 season.<\/p>\n The Frenchman also made a comment on Instagram to rubbish speculation that he’s out for the remainder of the campaign, as he stated<\/a>: “I\u2019m not out for the rest of the season, I don\u2019t know why he [Maresca] said that. I will be back in 4-6 weeks.”<\/p>\n The 24-year-old defender had a pretty solid first half of the 2024\/25 season for the Blues, making 12 Premier League appearances and helping them get three clean sheets in that period too. He produced especially good performances in their draws against Arsenal and Manchester United, with Maresca even protecting him from cup matches and the UEFA Europa Conference League to help the centre-back get ample rest between matches.<\/p>\n Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>Chelsea Face Injury Blow as \u00a3250K P\/W Star Potentially Sidelined Until 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Despite that, he ended up suffering a hamstring issue in the Blues’ 3-0 win over Aston Villa last month and is now going through another spell on the sidelines. Fofana missed the entirety of the 2023\/24 season because of a knee injury<\/a> and also missed 26 matches for Chelsea in the 2022\/23 season. Maresca hailed him as “fantastic”<\/a> earlier in the 2024\/25 campaign, but Fofana’s inability to maintain his fitness levels for the majority of a season could impact his long-term role at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea had a frustrating beginning to 2025 as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Crystal Palace in the first Premier League clash of the new calendar year. The Blues are being troubled by injuries to key defenders, but there has been a positive update on the status of centre-back Wesley Fofana. Wesley Fofana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4218,"featured_media":649655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,30],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-650246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-chelsea","category-news","tag-chelsea"],"modified_by":"Henry Chung, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650261,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650246\/revisions\/650261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fofana’s Injury Struggles Continue At Chelsea<\/h3>\n