{"id":661626,"date":"2025-11-21T06:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=661626"},"modified":"2025-11-21T06:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:13:17","slug":"world-class-chelsea-player-back-crucial-fixtures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/11\/21\/world-class-chelsea-player-back-crucial-fixtures\/","title":{"rendered":"‘World Class’ Chelsea Player ‘Is Back’ For Crucial Fixtures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enzo Maresca spoke to the press ahead of his side’s match with Burnley in the Premier League. He has some injuries to juggle and fitness issues that saw some players miss the international break. Amid that, he did give an update on one player who has been sidelined but is now fit to return ahead of a crucial run of games that includes a Champions League tie with Barcelona and a match with league-leaders Arsenal in what could be a six-pointer for the top spot.<\/p>\n

Top Chelsea Player is Fit to Play<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Enzo’s Latest<\/h3>\n

In an update on the status of a number of players, Maresca noted<\/a> that “Benoit is back”, reffering to centre-back Benoit Badiashile who went down injured against Liverpool and hasn’t featured since. This is good news as the left-footer is one of the few LCB’s in the current squad and was playing at a very high level in his brief run in this campaign.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>How Every Chelsea Player Performed in November International Break<\/a><\/p>\n

He isn’t the only one to be given a positive prognosis as the manager noted that both Enzo Fernandez and Pedro Neto also used the international break to get healthy. Neither man went to represent their nations and have been given some well-earned rest.<\/p>\n

Benoit Badiashile’s Form<\/h3>\n

The French defender has been injury-prone since his move to Stamford Bridge but in drips and drabs, we have seen flashes of an excellent defender. His performance against Liverpool earlier this season saw some refer to him as a “world class<\/a> centre back” in waiting, just needing minutes to show his abilities.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>Best Chelsea Players to Wear the Number 11 Jersey Ever<\/a><\/p>\n

While it is difficult to get a full picture of his abilities, there are some very impressive metrics to back up the former Monaco man’s talents. He is in the 99th percentile for both pass attempts and pass completion per 90 over the past year, he is also one of the best in his position for progressive passes.<\/p>\n

Featured Image Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chelsea\u2019s
IMAGO \/ Inpho Photography
Chelsea press conference, PK, Pressekonferenz Cobham, Stoke d Abernon, Englad 18\/12\/2024 Manager Enzo Maresca Enzo Maresca 18\/12\/2024 PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUKxIRLxFRAxNZL Copyright: x INPHO\/PaulxNealonx DSC01178<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enzo Maresca spoke to the press ahead of his side’s match with Burnley in the Premier League. He has some injuries to juggle and fitness issues that saw some players miss the international break. Amid that, he did give an update on one player who has been sidelined but is now fit to return ahead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":649655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[30,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-chelsea"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661626","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\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661627,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661626\/revisions\/661627"}],"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=661626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}