{"id":618,"date":"2026-04-25T04:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T04:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=618"},"modified":"2026-04-25T04:30:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T04:30:48","slug":"cole-palmer-and-joao-pedro-injury-update-ahead-of-chelsea-vs-leeds-united-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=618","title":{"rendered":"Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro injury update ahead of Chelsea vs Leeds United | Football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"646\" height=\"432\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2272004423_918ed4.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=646\" class=\"article-image wp-image-28102884\" alt=\"Chelsea v Manchester United - Premier League\" decoding=\"sync\"\/>\t<\/div><figcaption>Cole Palmer missed Tuesday\u2019s defeat to Brighton (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro are in contention to return to the starting lineup when Chelsea face Leeds United in FA Cup semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p>Injuries meant both players were absent from Tuesday\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Brighton, a loss which brought to an end Liam Rosenior\u2019s ill-fated spell in charge of the Blues.<\/p>\n<p>But Callum McFarlane, who has replaced Rosenior until the end of the season, revealed that both are back in training ahead of Sunday\u2019s visit to Wembley.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Joao and Cole have trained,\u2019 the new interim head coach said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018They\u2019re in a good place. We don\u2019t know yet. We\u2019ve got another day tomorrow where we\u2019ll look at that and make a decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Yes we hope (they could both start). They\u2019ll train tomorrow and we\u2019ll make a call.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>However, it is not all good news on the injury front for Chelsea, with McFarlane confirming that Estevao will miss the rest of the season due to a serious hamstring injury picked up against Manchester United.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"594\" height=\"396\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2271405277.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=594\" class=\"article-image wp-image-28103035\" alt=\"Chelsea v Manchester United - Premier League\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>\t<\/div><figcaption>Estevao will miss the rest of the season (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u2018Estevao unfortunately won\u2019t play for us this season,\u2019 he added. \u2018He\u2019ll be out for a little bit of time. But we\u2019re here to support him.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the Brazilian international\u2019s chances of recovering in time for the World Cup, McFarlane added: \u2018I\u2019m not sure on that if I\u2019m honest. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018He won\u2019t be available for us. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s very hopeful he can make the World Cup but I don\u2019t know on that.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Levi Colwill, Reece James, Jamie Gittens and Filip Jorgensen remain sidelined for the Blues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>For more stories like this,\u00a0check our sport page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on <meta charset=\"utf-8\"\/><br \/>\n<strong>Facebook, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Metro_Sport\">Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0Instagram<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"\/><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Frank Lampard responds to Chelsea return link after Liam Rosenior sacking<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"\/><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Alan Shearer\u2019s FA Cup and Premier League predictions including Arsenal vs Newcastle<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"metro-more-link\"><svg><title>Arrow<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#common-right-arrow\" href=\"#common-right-arrow\"\/><\/svg><span class=\"mor-link\" data-track-module=\"mor-link_article\">MORE: Did Chelsea simply stop running for Liam Rosenior? The truth behind the alarming stat<\/span><\/p>\n<section id=\"share-buttons-bottom\" class=\"share-buttons share-buttons-bottom\">\n\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Comment now<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-comment\" href=\"#social-comment\"\/><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-comments__label\">Comments<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-preferred-source\" href=\"#social-preferred-source\"\/><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-preferred-source__label\">Add as preferred source<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/section>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cole Palmer missed Tuesday\u2019s defeat to Brighton (Picture: Getty) Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618","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\/618","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=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}