Wesley Fofana will reputedly return to the squad when Chelsea host Southampton tonight.
Fofana, 24, has missed approaching three months after straining his hamstring when stepping on the ball during the Blues’ home win over Aston Villa at the start of December. Head coach Enzo Maresca initially said the defender would miss at least five weeks.
But, at the beginning of this year, he upgraded that timeline to “a very long time” and described the setback as a “big blow”. Maresca even acknowledged Fofana could be out for the rest of this season, clarifying the club did not know exactly when the player would be back.
That changed in the middle of this month, with Fofana starting to work with the team again during training. However, Maresca warned: “We cannot rush him, and he will still need at least two or three weeks working before he can be ready to play.”
The player also acknowledged at the time he had returned to training, sharing photos from the sessions on his Instagram account. Fofana captioned that post with a couple of emojis, one about dying his hair grey, alongside the hashtag “pour eux”, which translates from French into English as “for them”.
A fortnight later, it appears Chelsea will have Fofana back for them at Stamford Bridge. RMC Sport reports Fofana will be back in the squad to face Southampton. His reputed return would be a welcome boost to Maresca, who will still be without Benoit Badiashile and Trevoh Chalobah for the visit of Southampton.
The former replaced Fofana in his last outing against Villa, but his fellow Frenchman would also sustain a hamstring problem in training barely a week later and has missed the two months since. Then, on Saturday evening, the latter limped off in the reverse fixture at Villa Park but seems set to return early next month.
