Reece James’s fitness is currently in a good enough state that he can play three games a week, Enzo Maresca insists.
James has suffered significant injuries throughout his career, with regular hamstring and knee problems having heavily limited the 25-year-old’s game time for both Chelsea and England.
The right-back started both of England’s World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia over the past week.
Amassing 137 match minutes over those two matches had led some Chelsea supporters to doubt whether he would also start Saturday’s Premier League match away to Brentford.
Chelsea have Malo Gusto in reserve, with the Frenchman well used to sharing game time at right-back with James by now.
“In the moment that any player joins the international team, it's free to play the minutes that the manager thinks that he has to play, so it's not in my hands,” Maresca said of whether the game time England head coach Thomas Tuchel had given James surprised him.
“When Reece is here, we try to manage him as much as we can. Since I joined the club I'm doing that with him, with Romeo [Lavia], with Wes [Fofana], with the ones that in the past had problems.
“But I think, now, Reece is showing that he's quite fit to play two, three games in a week.”
Pressed on whether he is fine to play at Brentford, Maresca replied: “Yeah, he's good.”
