'I warned Chelsea about injury crisis' says club scout

Cameron Smith

• 30 Sep 2025 09:00 CDT
• 3 min read

News

Chelsea scout Seyi Olofinjana says that he privately warned the club’s hierarchy they would likely struggle with injury issues during the 2025-26 season.

Enzo Maresca’s side have been hit with an injury crisis in recent weeks and they will be without a number of key players when they face Benfica in their second Champions League fixture of the campaign on Tuesday night.

Current ETV

Levi Colwill 

D (C)

Chelsea

Levi Colwill 

D (C)

Chelsea

€57.8M

ETV Range

€52.1M - €63.6M

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The Blues played a whopping 64 matches across all competitions last season and their busy fixture schedule is believed to be a key contributing factor to the number of players currently on the treatment table at the club’s Cobham training facility.

However, former Wolverhampton Wanderers and Stoke City midfielder Olofinjana, who is a scout for the Blues, has revealed that he warned the Chelsea hierarchy that an injury crisis was likely to occur this season.

“I've got to be very careful what I say here, I work for Chelsea. But to be honest, this is what I discussed even with the directors in the football club,” Olofinjana told All Nigeria Soccer.

“Before any ball was kicked this season, I knew Chelsea would struggle given the season they had last year. When the season was finished, whether they won the Club World Cup was immaterial.

“When you play back-to-back and then you have only a week to come back into a new season, it happened with [Levi] Colwill who has an ACL at the moment and will be out for a long time.”

Chelsea injury update

Colwill is one of several Chelsea players currently unavailable through injury, with the England international expected to miss the majority of the 2025-26 campaign after rupturing his ACL in early August.

Cole Palmer, Tosin Adarabioyo and Wesley Fofana will all be absent until after the October international break, while Liam Delap is aiming to return to full fitness before the start of December after suffering a hamstring issue last month.

In addition, Dario Essugo is unlikely to feature again in 2025 after sustaining a thigh injury while on international duty with Portugal in September.

Romeo Lavia and Benoit Baidashile both returned to action against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday, although Maresca is expected to ease them back slowly following long-term absences.

Furthermore, the Chelsea boss has also confirmed that Moises Caicedo, Andrey Santos and Joao Pedro all have knocks and aren’t 100%.

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