World class Chelsea star could be thrown into new position after injuries rock squad | OneFootball

Today’s press conference was bad news for Chelsea – news of a season-ending injury for Wesley Fofana was compounded the news that Benoit Badiashile is also going to be out for some time.

There was some good news – the return of Reece James, who was in the squad for the Ipswich game on Monday night and is now training fully with the team. We don’t expect him to be ready to start tomorrow, but he could come off the bench, and manager Enzo Maresca confirmed that that was likely:

“He’s back, the last game against Ipswich he was with us just to be with us on the squad; the plan was not to give him any minutes,” Maresca explained.

“Tomorrow is different, we can give him minutes, so hopefully we all know how important this game is for us, so hopefully he can get minutes very soon.”

With a successful cameo tomorrow, right back James should be ready to start a week later against Morecambe in the FA Cup – although he might just work his way up to 45 minutes in that game so he can then make a first Premier League start of 2025 against Bournemouth on the 14th.

Versatile James could come in to rescue Chelsea’s patched up back line

Reece James and Enzo Maresca laughing in training.

Football coaching at the top level is all about resource management, and while all these injuries are a blow to Chelsea, it will be really interesting to see how Maresca finds a solution within the group of available players.

With one central defender out until the end of the season and the other out for a couple of months at least, it feels like there’s a high chance that James gets used in some interesting ways – perhaps as wide central defender in a 3.

The same goes for Josh Acheampong, who will continue to get right back minutes as Axel Disasi gets shifted across to cover in central defence more often.