The Blues travel north to Manchester to face Ruben Amorim’s side at Old Trafford on Saturday evening, looking to return to winning ways following our midweek defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

Given the short turnaround from that fixture in Bavaria, with the Blues only returning to the UK yesterday, Maresca stated at his pre-match media briefing that he will need to assess the players ahead of the weekend after confirming we have ‘some doubts’ on some players.

The Italian was first asked about Palmer's fitness, following his recent return to the side from injury, with Maresca explaining that the forward is fine following the game on Wednesday.

‘Yes, Cole is okay,’ Maresca confirmed at his pre-match press conference.

‘We have a training session now where we will look at the players. We fley back yesterday [from Munich], so we need to assess some of the guys before we make a decision for the weekend.

‘We haven’t had a session since the game on Wednesday, we have some doubts but we will see after today’s training session.’

One player who could feature in the matchday squad is Marc Guiu, with the Spaniard recalled early from his loan spell at Sunderland at the beginning of this month following Liam Delap’s injury.

Guiu offers an option for Maresca, who confirmed that he is in his thinking as an option in the final third going forward.

‘Marc Guiu is back and the reason why he is back is because we intend to use him,’ added our Italian head coach.

‘He is a good player and while he needs to do things better and can still improve, we know what Marc can offer us. For sure, we are going to use him.’