Chelsea are still waiting to learn the severity of Wesley Fofana’s injury, but the defender faces “some weeks” out.
The centre-back limped off after an hour in the win over Aston Villa on Sunday, with Enzo Maresca suggesting after the match that Fofana could miss as many as a dozen matches.
There is not yet a firm timeline for the Frenchman’s return from the hamstring injury, though, with Chelsea expecting to learn more later this week.
“We don’t have any update at the moment in terms of it happened two days ago, we have to wait a bit,” Maresca said at a press conference on Tuesday ahead of his side’s trip to face Southampton.
“Hopefully we can get some more news in the next few days but for sure he will be out for some weeks.”
Benoit Badiashile replaced Fofana against Villa and will hope to partner Levi Colwill at St Mary’s on Wednesday night, but Tosin Adarabioyo and Axel Disasi are also options.
“For sure Benoit is one of the solutions but we have Tosin, we have Axel, we have different players that can play there,” Maresca said.
“For sure, it is a big loss because Wes was doing fantastic in every game but we have to accept it and find different solutions.”
Reece James, meanwhile, is also “weeks” away from a comeback as his injury-hit season continues.
The right-back had to wait until October for his first appearance of the season due to a hamstring injury, and he now finds himself on the sidelines again having made only three starts for the Blues.
James picked up a fresh hamstring issue during training last month, one that Maresca initially described as “something small”, but he has missed Chelsea’s last three matches and a return to action is not imminent.
“It is the same situation, more or less, he is getting better but still needs to weeks to come back,” Maresca said.
