Enzo Maresca could be without South Americans for Chelsea’s trip to Brentford

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca could be without four of his South American stars for Saturday’s trip to Brentford.

The Blues’ three Brazilians – Joao Pedro, Estevao Willian and Andrey Santos – arrived back in England on Thursday after playing in their country’s 1-0 defeat to Bolivia, whilst Moises Caicedo returned late on Thursday night following Ecuador’s victory over Argentina.

Brazil’s game took place at an altitude of more than 4,000m, creating a further complicating factor in recovery times.

“The three Brazilian players arrived yesterday, they didn’t train, they did some recovery sessions,” said Maresca. “Moises arrived last night. They’re all a question mark for tomorrow.”

The Italian also confirmed that striker Liam Delap is likely to be out for up to 12 weeks following the hamstring injury he sustained before the international break.

The 22-year-old went off in the first half of Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Fulham with his return date now pushed back beyond the initial forecast of six to eight weeks, possibly as far as December.

The club recalled striker Marc Guiu from his season-long loan at Sunderland on deadline day after failing in their attempt to call off Nicolas Jackson’s loan move to Bayern Munich.

“Liam is around 10, 12 weeks,” said Maresca. “A long way to go.

“The injury means we only have Guiu as a nine. Joao also can play there, against Fulham we used Ty (Tyrique George) as a nine, we can think about him also.”

Cole Palmer was due to be assessed on Friday for the trip to Brentford having not played since the opening-weekend draw with Crystal Palace.

He was not included in Thomas Tuchel’s England squad for last week’s games against Andorra and Serbia.

“Cole took part (Thursday) for the first time, not the entire session,” said Maresca. “We’ll see today (Friday) if he’s OK, otherwise tomorrow he’ll be out again.

“He was injured, he’s recovering. We’re not managing him, he’s just recovering.”