Reece James made his first appearance of the new campaign and Chelsea fans made their minds up about him.
The England international’s injury struggles have been well-documented but with both Marc Cucurella and Wesley Fofana suspended, the Blues skipper received a surprise start.
James had surgery on his hamstring last season and then continued to experience fitness issues which left him on the sidelines following pre-season.
After training well over the international break, he got the nod against Liverpool at Anfield and many wondered if James would be rusty.
But the 24-year-old received huge praise for his display after a long spell out.
He started at right-back and lasted 53 minutes before being replaced by Renato Veiga.
And although the team lost 2-1, according to Chelsea fans, there was plenty of reason for encouragement in regards to James.
One said: “Reece James is just different class and so is Gusto. I would play Gusto over Cucu as LB if James stays fit for RB.”
A second commented: “Reece James is absolutely ridiculous man. He’s godly good at build up.”
A third added: You can’t tell me that Reece James has been out for 6 months. What a performance he’s having. His first game back and he’s that good.”
A fourth simply wrote: “Reece James oh how much I missed you.”
A final user posted: “You’d never believe that Reece James hasn’t played competitively in 10 months he’s been perfect in all of his actions so far.”
Prior to the game, Maresca explained that along with Romeo Lavia and Fofana, James will likely only be playing once a week due to the need to manage his fitness as his “body cannot play twice a week”.
Chelsea are participating in the Europa Conference League but Maresca is using a very different squad for the competition.
Speaking in a press conference, he said: “Probably the solution with Reece is the same solution we are using with Romeo [Lavia] and Wes [Fofana] in terms of using them just once a week, in one game, because probably in this moment, for different reasons, Reece’s body cannot play twice a week.
“One of the solutions is probably to try and manage him in the same way we are doing with Wes and Romeo.
“In this moment, this can be the solution. In the future, I don’t know. But if we want to build something with him in terms of physical condition, then probably the solution is to allow him to go slowly and use him once a week and then hopefully in the future we can use him more during the week. In this moment, we need to think to use him once a week.”