Chelsea handed Romeo Lavia injury nightmare as Enzo Maresca faces three-man dilemma

Romeo Lavia limped off just minutes into Chelsea's draw with Qarabag on Wednesday evening with the Blues now facing an anxious wait to discover the full extent of his latest injury

Five-hundred and two days of football Romeo Lavia has missed since joining Chelsea 811 days ago. That is, staggeringly, 61.8% of the time the 21-year-old has been at Stamford Bridge spent on the sidelines.

Lavia has missed a total of 77 matches for the Blues in all competitions since completing the £58million switch from Southampton. That number is set to increase following the midfielder's latest setback. Just five minutes into Wednesday evening's draw with Qarabag in the Champions League, the Belgian was left on the floor in pain.

As soon as you saw Lavia down in pain, you knew his night was over. Even if it was not too serious, Enzo Maresca was never going to risk him. The Chelsea head coach said this little over 24 hours prior to the game in Baku: "The main target for Romeo now is to be fit. Don't get any injuries.

"For me, at this moment, Romeo is where Reece [James] was more or less one year ago in terms of [being] back after a long time. We need to manage him every minute, every day, every second. And the target with him is just to keep him fit.

"So, he's training with us. He's OK. He is 100% fit. But we need to be careful with him because we don't want him to be out again and finally he can enjoy being a football player."

Those final five words from Maresca, "enjoy being a football player", are the crucial - yet now the most cruel and brutal - ones. Lavia has been unable to enjoy being a footballer too much in recent seasons. There have been little highs and far too many lows from a personal point of view.

There is no doubting the talent the Belgian midfielder has. On the rare occasion he is on the pitch, Chelsea look a much better side. Lavia is the balance - in many ways - to the Blues side. Lavia has made just 18 starts in his Chelsea career, with the Blues losing on only three of those occasions while winning 11 times and drawing four.

Remarkably, though, Lavia is yet to complete a full 90 minutes for Chelsea. And while his importance to the side is undeniable, that is the big problem; a glaring issue that needs to be investigated further by those at the club.

Chelsea will run tests on Lavia to examine his quad injury further. "We feel a shame especially for him because he is not able to be fit for a long, long period," Maresca said in Azerbaijan on Wednesday. "We will see now as it's too early to understand what kind of injury. Hopefully it is not a big injury."

If Lavia was to be out for a lengthy period of time, then it leaves Maresca very light of what you would describe as natural midfield options. Reece James, Malo Gusto and Josh Acheampong can all play in the centre of midfield, but are natural defenders. Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Andrey Santos are the only fit orthodox midfielders for Chelsea.

Dario Essugo is expected to be out until December-January time as he continues his recovery from a thigh problem. The 20-year-old midfielder suffered a thigh injury while with Portugal Under-21s and had successful surgery on the problem back in September.

Hopefully - for Chelsea and Lavia's sake - the injury is not a serious one. With the international break coming up, there is two weeks of recovery time for the former Manchester City midfielder. Given Lavia's torrid luck, though, it would not shock you if the Blues were unable to call on him for the foreseeable future.