{"id":4233,"date":"2026-05-05T13:43:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=4233"},"modified":"2026-05-05T13:43:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:43:49","slug":"manager-confirms-fresh-injury-setback-for-incoming-chelsea-player-concern-for-blues-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=4233","title":{"rendered":"Manager confirms fresh injury setback for incoming Chelsea player \u2013 Concern for Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Last September, Chelsea reached an agreement with Strasbourg for Emmanuel Emegha to arrive at Stamford Bridge this summer. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BlueCo own both Chelsea and the Ligue 1 side and this connection facilitates easy transfers.<\/p>\n<p>Liam Rosenior was Strasbourg manager when the Blues agreed terms for the striker\u2019s sale. At that time, it didn\u2019t please the French club\u2019s supporters, who made their feelings clear.<\/p>\n<p>In September 2025, Rosenior said the player was angry at the reaction from the French club\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, he managed 14 goals and three assists and his form for Strasbourg saw him receive a call up from the Netherlands in November. The same month, the player said he\u2019s happy to secure a future move to the Premier League side.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Injury concern for incoming Chelsea man<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The Netherlands international\u2019s current fitness situation won\u2019t please Chelsea.<\/p>\n<p>The Netherlands international returned from a long injury break last month. He has now picked up a fresh blow in RC Strasbourg\u2019s 2-1 defeat to Toulouse FC on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Emmanuel Emegha came on in the 82nd minute to replace Sebastian Nanasi and suffered a new setback.<\/p>\n<p>Strasbourg manager Gary O\u2019Neil confirmed this, and ICI Alsace took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to relay his comments. The 23-year-old is unlikely to feature in the UEFA Conference League semi-final clash against Rayo Vallecano on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI haven\u2019t received a report from the medical staff yet. But if you have hamstring pain on Sunday, it seems complicated you\u2019d be able to play on Thursday. We\u2019ve managed to win games without Emma this season,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n<p>L\u2019Equipe also relay more comments from O\u2019Neil about the incoming Chelsea striker.<\/p>\n<p>The manager explained he wanted to avoid risk with certain players for yesterday\u2019s clash, but his decision with Emegha seems to have backfired.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIf I field my best players, we beat Toulouse, but the medical staff told us not to,\u201d<\/em> O\u2019Neil explained.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cHe (Emegha) could have played fifteen minutes, I gave him ten thinking he could help us and to reduce the risk, but he got injured.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Our take: Big concern for Blues<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Emmanuel Emegha has struggled with muscle injuries this season. Last August, he picked up an hamstring injury that kept him on the sidelines for 29 days.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the frontman had a muscle fibre tear for which he spent 113 days away from the pitch and only returned to action in April.<\/p>\n<p>He now suffers another hamstring injury and it\u2019s unclear whether he\u2019ll be able to feature again this season. The regular muscle problems so far this season should be a concern for Chelsea.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 2 -->\n        <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last September, Chelsea reached an agreement with Strasbourg for Emmanuel Emegha to arrive at Stamford&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}