Chelsea were living carefree just a few days ago, with a very blessed period with few injuries or issues affecting Enzo Maresca's team selection.
Sunday's game against Nottingham Forest changed that dramatically. We now go into this international break with a lot of question marks.
Marc Cucurella and Wesley Fofana both picked up bookings, which will mean they're suspended for the game against Liverpool next week. Worse than that, Nicolas Jackson could face retrospective punishment for slapping Forest defender Morato in the melee at the end of the game.
To make things worse, Levi Colwill was repeatedly seen holding his thigh, and was eventually subbed off, while Noni Madueke also looked to have a knock when he was removed. Enzo Maresca played down the severity of both injuries, but confirmed they existed.
Noni Madueke's England montage with Lee Carsley. Good news starts to trickle in from national team camps After that slew of bad news, we were hoping to start to get some good news to mitigate it - and indeed we have. The real question marks were who was going to turn up for international duty, and so far there have been no unexpected absences. We were delighted to hear from Kieran Gill at the Daily Mail that Noni Madueke is with England after all, and has been passed fit to train and play with the Three Lions after his "injury scare."
Madueke faces a tough battle for minutes with England in this break and for years to come given the talent around, but he's doing well for Chelsea now and will be looking to grab this opportunity now it's come about.
We don't want any of our players overworked this fortnight, but we would like to see Noni's work rewarded with some minutes for his country.
Now all eyes are peeled for Colwill out there somewhere...
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