Chelsea will travel to Lincoln City in the third round of the 2025/26 English League Cup. Maresca said that Badiaciele and Lavia will not be able to participate in the game in time, and Palmer's availability remains to be further evaluated.

In the previous Premier League focus game, Chelsea lost to Manchester United 1-2 after Chalobah scored despite being one man down and conceding a goal, and failed to meet the challenge of the English League Cup with a victory.

In addition, Palmer was substituted in the 21st minute of the first half in the previous match against Manchester United.

Chelsea manager Maresca said: "Palmer may be the only player we need to observe further. The others are fine. They are just recovering from the previous game."

"Palmer has made great efforts to try to play in a game. He had a test before, but he was not 100% healthy. He just wanted to help his teammates in the game. However, he felt pain at the time, so we decided to replace him. We will continue to observe his condition and then make a decision."

"Apart from Palmer, we have some players who are dealing with problems, like Caicedo and Joao Pedro. They are trying to adjust, but everyone else is fine," Maresca continued.

"It is a pity that both Badiaciler and Lavia will not be able to participate in this game, but they both participated in training yesterday, which is good news. I hope they can return to the team as soon as possible."

In addition, Maresca added, "It's easy to let your guard down in this type of game, but the schedule is always full of such games, so I'm very vigilant about this. But what is certain is that we will, as always, include some youth players in the roster."