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Enzo Maresca has said Reece James has suffered another hamstring injury and will miss Chelsea’s trip to face Leicester in the Premier League this weekend.
James, 24, has suffered from frequent muscular injuries over the past few seasons and only returned from a five-month layoff in Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat to Liverpool on Oct. 20.
“We have just one injured player, that is Reece. He felt something small and we don’t want to take any risk,” Maresca told a news conference on Thursday.
“He is the only one for sure who is injured. The rest, some are better, some are still a doubt. We have to see. It’s hamstring, it’s a muscle problem and we don’t want to take any risk.”
The Chelsea captain played just 482 minutes of first-team football last season as hamstring injuries kept him on the sidelines. He underwent surgery in an attempt to correct the issues in December 2023, before he picked up another hamstring injury during the club’s preseason tour of the United States this summer.
Maresca said on Oct. 18 that he was looking to ease James back into the first-team picture slowly by initially limiting his match time as he felt the player’s body cannot cope with two matches in a week.
Since his return, James started consecutive games against Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and played the last eight minutes of Chelsea’s draw with Arsenal before the international break.