Screenshots of a deleted social-media post circulated for hours before kick-off on Tuesday claiming Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro would both be missing from Chelsea's line-up against Brighton, and both players were absent when the team was announced.
The screenshots showed a message the poster said came from Marc Cucurella's barber and included an image of the back of Cucurella's curly hair. The unknown poster wrote: "[Cole] Palmer and Joao Pedro both injured tonight," and added, "There's your exclusive."
The post had been deleted by the time it had spread across feeds, and the screenshots cannot be independently verified. Chelsea have not denied the authenticity of the post when asked. A sports broadcaster contacted the barber and Cucurella's representatives for comment.
The timing of the screenshots mattered. They were shared for hours before kick-off on Tuesday, and both Palmer and Joao Pedro were missing from the starting line-up that was published ahead of the match. Joao Pedro had undergone a fitness test on the morning of the match; Cole Palmer's hamstring injury had not been publicly known before the team list appeared.
Marc Cucurella joined Chelsea from Brighton in 2022 for £63m. The image attached to the deleted post showed the back of his curly hair and was cited by the unknown poster as proof of the source.
The episode is the latest to raise questions about how team news is reaching the public from inside Chelsea. It would be the third instance in which team news had reportedly leaked from Chelsea since Liam Rosenior's appointment in early January. Team news was said to have got out around both legs of Chelsea's Champions League tie with Paris St-Germain earlier this season.
When asked about earlier leaks, Rosenior said they had been "dealt with" and that they had "not come from any place of malicious intent towards me or the team." He has not been recorded commenting on the Tuesday screenshots or the deleted post.
The immediate practical effect is clear: two players named as injured in the screenshots were not in the match-day squad. Beyond that there is a tangle of unanswered points. The post was deleted and cannot be corroborated; Chelsea did not refute its authenticity when pressed; and a representative of the barber and Cucurella's own representatives were approached for comment by a broadcaster.
The broader context sharpens the stakes. Chelsea sit seventh in the Premier League table with four league matches left to play, and their next fixture is the FA Cup semi-final against Leeds at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. If internal information continues to leak ahead of high-profile matches, the club risks repeated scrutiny at a particularly sensitive moment in its season.
For Marc Cucurella, the image attached to the deleted post has pulled him into a story about internal communications that he did not set out to make. For supporters and the club's hierarchy, the clearest conclusion the facts currently support is this: a deleted and unverified social-media post, left unanswered by the club, has deepened questions about how Chelsea's team news is controlled ahead of crucial fixtures.
