Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca will hold a meeting with medical staff to discuss the club’s approach to Cole Palmer's persistent groin injury.
Palmer was substituted after 21 minutes of Saturday’s Premier League defeat by Manchester United as his ongoing issue caused yet more problems.
The 23-year-old had already missed matches against West Ham and Fulham this season and was a second-half substitute against Brentford.
On Monday, Maresca played down the suggestion that Palmer might need to undergo surgery if the injury continues to linger.
But now the Chelsea manager has revealed that a meeting will be held to discuss the best course of action as the club manage their star player’s fitness.
“We need to protect Cole, for sure,” Maresca said. “Not only Cole, in my personal view, because of the Club World Cup and because we never stop.
“We need to manage and protect different players. For sure, Cole is one of them. Another one is Moi [Moises Caicedo].
“Joao Pedro, also. Since he joined us, he's playing every game. The solution with Cole, I don't know.”
Maresca added: “Now we have a meeting with the medical staff and we decide the best solution for him. But it's also a kind of injury that is not like black and white.
“It's not an injury that some day you can be better. It's not that you are playing and tomorrow you disappear.
“Sometimes you can be better, sometimes you can be worse. That's why we need to manage day by day.”
Maresca also lamented that injuries mean he will likely have to play Tosin Adarabioyo, Wesley Fofana or Trevoh Chalobah in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup match at Lincoln.
The Italian would ideally have chosen to rest all three centre-backs, but Levi Colwill is out for the majority of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury and Benoit Badiashile has yet to return.
“I would love to rest both of them because they deserve to rest,” Maresca said of Chalobah and Tosin.
“The problem is that we also have Wes Fofana playing after a long time. So if we rest Tosin, if we rest Trev, and if we rest Wes, probably I need to play some part of the game!
“We don't have defenders, so some of them need to play.”
