Reece James is available for Chelsea’s trip to Liverpool this weekend, but Blues boss Enzo Maresca has warned that the right-back will not be able to play more than one game a week for the foreseeable future.
James is yet to play a minute of competitive football for Chelsea this season, having suffered a recurrence of a hamstring injury during preseason.
However, the club captain returned to training during the international break in a major boost to Maresca, who is missing defenders Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella through suspension for Sunday’s game at Anfield.
While James is unlikely to start against the Premier League leaders, Maresca confirmed he is ready to feature if required.
“He’s available,” the Italian said. “He’s back, worked with us all the international break. It’s good news for him.”
James has been plagued by injury throughout the last two seasons, starting just 19 league matches in that time.
He underwent surgery midway through last term in a bid to resolve his persistent hamstring troubles in a decision that effectively ended his hopes of going to Euro 2024 and the setback suffered in preseason came as a huge frustration to the club and player alike.
Maresca now admits he will have to take a cautious approach with James, comparing his situation to that of Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia. Both of those players returned from long-term injuries at the start of the season and were, along with Cole Palmer, left out of Chelsea’s squad for the Conference League group stage in a bid to manage their workload.
"It’s always complicated when you get injury after injury after injury,” Maresca explained. “It’s not easy and you’re always looking for resolutions.
“Probably, with Reece it’s the same as we’re using with Romeo and Wes in terms of using them just once a week in one game. For different reasons Reece’s body cannot play twice a week. We will try to manage him in the same way.”
