{"id":661781,"date":"2025-11-28T10:25:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=661781"},"modified":"2025-11-28T10:25:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:25:42","slug":"enzo-maresca-return-palmer-key-midfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/11\/28\/enzo-maresca-return-palmer-key-midfielder\/","title":{"rendered":"Enzo Maresca Confirms Training Return of Palmer & Key Midfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enzo Maresca spoke to the press ahead of his Chelsea team’s upcoming match with Arsenal in a top-of-the-table six-pointer. The Blues are currently in second, six points behind the league leaders and could eat into a chunk of that lead if they came away with a win, which would be just the second league defeat of the campaign for the Gunners. The manager gave out some good news ahead of that fixture as he welcomed back a star attacker and a key midfielder to training.<\/p>\n

Chelsea Injury News Latest – Midfielder Back in Training<\/h2>\n

Cole Palmer Update<\/h3>\n

The English attacker is not only available to play in this key collision, but he is also reportedly ready to start<\/a>, according to Maresca’s comments. This comes just a week after the former Manchester City man suffered a setback in his return from a groin injury when he broke his toe, an issue that kept him out of the win over Barcelona.<\/p>\n

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With Palmer available to start, that could be key in any hopes the team has to win, although there are some questions over whether he should start and play ninety minutes. His availability is a big bonus either way, even if just off the bench.<\/p>\n

Midfielder Returns to Training<\/h3>\n

In more interesting news, and a slight surprise, Dario Essugo has made his return<\/a> to training after an injury suffered in an international break. He was signed over the summer to add some coverage for Moises Caicedo but was hurt before he could settle in and hit a groove. With Romeo Lavia once again going down with injury, there have been less chances than ever to rest Caicedo.<\/p>\n

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A return for Essugo would add an extra body to the midfield ahead of the busy December into January stretch, where the team will be competing on all fronts with matches in the Premier League, League Cup, and Champions League to juggle.<\/p>\n

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

\"Chelsea
IMAGO \/ Every Second Media
FC Copenhagen v Chelsea FC Chelsea FC forward Cole Palmer 20 during the FC Copenhagen v Chelsea FC UEFA Conference League Round of 16 1st leg match at Parken Stadium, Copenhagen, Denmark on 6 March 2025 Credit: Alex Young\/Every Second Media Editorial use only. All images are copyright Every Second Media Limited. No images may be reproduced without prior permission. Copyright: xIMAGO\/EveryxSecondxMediax ESM-1350-0230 AlexxYoungx\/xEveryxSecondxMediax<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enzo Maresca spoke to the press ahead of his Chelsea team’s upcoming match with Arsenal in a top-of-the-table six-pointer. The Blues are currently in second, six points behind the league leaders and could eat into a chunk of that lead if they came away with a win, which would be just the second league defeat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":652515,"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":[9938],"class_list":["post-661781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-chelsea","tag-cole-palmer"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661781","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=661781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661785,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661781\/revisions\/661785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}