Chelsea kicked off their pre-season with a one-sided 2-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen in their first friendly. The Blues have barely had any training since returning from the three-week holiday following their Club World Cup triumph in the United States, but they looked quite fit and ready from start to finish.
Estevao marked his debut in style when the Brazilian scored his first goal for Chelsea in the first half after putting away a rebound. And in the final minutes of the second half, his fellow countryman Joao Pedro secured the win with a powerful finish into the bottom corner.
Although Chelsea seemed comfortable in their victory over Leverkusen, they were dealt a major setback earlier this week when arguably their best centre-back was injured in training. Tests revealed that Levi Colwill had suffered an ACL injury and has already undergone surgery.
He will now need to stay on the sidelines for the foreseeable future and could miss the entire 25/26 season. Many people have been wondering if Chelsea will try to find a replacement in the transfer market for the centre-back.
Enzo Maresca names transfer priority as Chelsea rumour rubbished
Earlier, there had been rumours that Chelsea did not have any urgent plans to sign a new centre-back. The club were to said to have full trust in their current squad and also with their latest signing, Jorrel Hato able to play at centre-back and left-back.
Enzo Maresca, however, clearly has other ideas about this, as he indicated that Chelsea will prioritise signing another centre-back in the remainder of this transfer window. As reported by GOAL, he said to Channel 5: "It is a priority [signing a new defender] for me. Levi is a fantastic player. What we achieved last season is because of him. He played a lot of games with me, I love him. We are going to miss him. We are also trying to find different solutions."
Maresca has plenty of choices already, as they still have eight senior centre-backs on their roster, as well as at least three additional players who can play in the heart of defence if needed. But nobody really feels like a standout option like Colwill was. Will the Blues stick with someone from their current roster, or will they return to the transfer market to find a new defender? Maresca's comments suggest that it will be the latter but only time will tell.