Romeo Lavia’s injury nightmare since joining Chelsea continued on Wednesday night as he lasted just eight minutes against Qarabag.
It was a bad night for the Blues as they travelled all the way to Baku for the Champions League clash and were held to a 2-2 draw by the Azerbaijani side.
There was also another fitness headache for Enzo Maresca and a demoralising blow for Lavia as he limped out of the contest in the opening exchanges.
Lavia has been plagued by injury since moving from Southampton in the summer of 2023, with a number of muscular issues keeping him out of action.
In more than two seasons with the club the Belgian was making just his 30th appearance on Wednesday night.
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Maresca spoke before the game about needing to protect the midfielder and build him back to full fitness, but he appeared to suffer yet another setback as he limped off within 10 minutes.
Speaking in a post-match press conference, the Chelsea boss explained: ‘We feel a shame for him, especially for him. He’s not able to be fit for a long, long period.
‘We will see now. It’s too early to understand what kind of injury. I think it’s his quad.’
Speaking of Lavia’s fitness levels before the game, Maresca said: ‘The main target for Romeo now is to be fit. Don’t get any injuries. For me, at this moment, Romeo is where Reece [James] was more or less one year ago in terms of back after a long time.
‘We need to manage him every minute, every day, every second. And the target with him is just to keep him fit. So, he’s training with us. He’s OK. He’s 100 per cent fit. But we need to be very careful with him because we don’t want him to be out again and finally he can enjoy being a football player.
‘In the Forest game, we planned for him 45 minutes. Then Ajax, I think he played one hour, 70 minutes. The other day against Tottenham, when he was on, he was very good.
‘We are happy with Romeo. We are happy with the way he’s progressing. And the only thing we want is to keep him fit. So, I would like to have Romeo inside the pitch always. But it’s my duty to try to protect also him.’
There were seven changes to the Chelsea side in Baku and with the disappointing draw, Maresca was forced to defend his team selection.
‘The intention is always because we think the plan with the players is the correct one,’ said the Blues boss. ‘Today, we started the right way, scored the goal but then we conceded two, the first one when they had 10 players. We can avoid both goals. In their box, we need to be more clinical.’
He added that the summer’s Club World Cup is going to leave a lasting impact on his squad and rotation is essential.
‘I think I tried to explain already many times, the intention was to rest Moises [Caicedo], Enzo [Fernandez], Malo [Gusto] and more players. They are not able to play every three days,’ he said.
‘The Club World Cup affected a lot. We tried to rotate. When we win, nobody mentions that but when we don’t, everyone is focused on that.’
It looked like it could be a routine evening for Chelsea when Estevao gave them the lead after 16 minutes, but they were behind before half-time.
Leandro Andrade equalised before Marko Jankovic scored from the spot after Jorrel Hato was penalised for handball.
Alejandro Garnacho came off the bench at the interval and rescued a point, but that’s all it was for the Blues.
from: elfutbolero.us