Enzo Maresca is taking his pre match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s game with Brighton, and the coach has just confirmed the good news that we were all hoping for.
Malo Gusto made his return to the team in midweek and played 45 minutes without any issues. That left just one other short term absentee – Romeo Lavia, who has been out for a month.
Maresca was finally able to say that the midfielder is fit and available for selection tomorrow. The coach stopped short of promising the Belgian would start – and in fact it seems much more likely he’s given 30 minutes at the end of the game – but as Maresca pointed out, the big picture and the important thing is that he’s injury free now and available for games going forward as we enter a busy patch.
“We will see [if he starts]. We have one more session now and then we will decide – but finally he is back.”
Lavia faces tough battle to return to XI despite his great form
Lavia was a key player in preseason and did well in the games he did play back in August. It felt like he was crucial in finding a balance in midfield. But the team has started playing really well without him, and Maresca won’t want to destabilise things by forcing him into the side.
The natural move would be to replace either Enzo Fernandez or Moises Caicedo tomorrow in the second half, and then long term think about the balance of using all 3. That would bump an attacker out of the team however, and given so many of them are in form, that’s a hard decision to make.
It will be very interesting to see how Maresca’s thinking develops over the next few games with Lavia available again.