'Not from a Halloween shop' - Xabi Alonso jokes about Emiliano Martinez's mask as Chelsea boss plays down Cole Palmer's England snub

Xabi Alonso has refused to dwell on Cole Palmer's omission from the England squad, insisting his conversations with the 24-year-old are only about Chelsea. The Blues boss also joked about goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez's protective mask and revealed that midfielder Moises Caicedo has "little problems" ahead of Sunday's Premier League trip to Sunderland.

Alonso faced questions about Palmer at his pre-match press conference at Cobham on Friday, after the 24-year-old was left out of England's squad for the Nations League clashes with Croatia and Spain. football.london understands officials at Wembley contacted Chelsea to check on his availability, but despite learning he was fit, the Three Lions left him out, making Morgan Rogers the club's only representative.

Asked if he had spoken to Palmer about the snub, Alonso said: "No, we have not spoken about that. We have been talking about our game on Sunday. We are very happy with Cole; I think that he's enjoying his game. He's connecting very well with the other attackers. He's helping the team. He's helping the team as well in developing and improving what we want and where we want to achieve, knowing that everything takes time, but I'm very happy with his quality, with his attitude, and the impact that he's having on the rest of the team."

Alonso insisted his conversations with Palmer are about club matters, not international duty. "We speak about Chelsea, we speak about us. We have enough on our plate. We have to focus each weekend, and that's my impact area, my control area, and what we talk about," he said.

The Spaniard did confirm the pair had discussed Palmer's recent red card. "He needs to focus on his thing, his thing is to play good football, to enjoy his game with us, with Chelsea, to connect with his teammates for sure," he added. "We spoke about the red card after the Spurs game. This is something that we have spoken about, but most of the things apart from that are about the game of football, about what we can do better."

Martinez, who had surgery on a fractured jaw last month, is back in training in a mask, and Alonso will decide on Sunday whether he starts. "The mask I guess is from a specialist, not from a Halloween shop, I guess [laughs]. I guess specialist for sure," he joked. "He's getting used [to it]; for sure, it's not the most comfortable thing, but he's getting used to it. He's been training almost the whole week with it. For a certain period of time, I'm sure that he will have to deal with it and to cope with it. He's been doing everything with it, so it's not [an] obstruction, and we have the green light from the doctors after the concussion. It's been already three weeks, so we have everything."

Caicedo, meanwhile, missed the first part of training on Wednesday. "Well, he was after the last game he had little problems, so we expect to check tomorrow different situation, and Moi is one of them," Alonso said, adding: "It's a discomfort more than the calf."

Chelsea, currently in the top four, hold their final training session tomorrow before the trip to Sunderland, a side Alonso believes "deserve more points than they got".

Alonso is not expecting Maxence Lacroix or Joao Pedro to be available, while Jorrel Hato needs "some more weeks", and he will give further updates before the Leeds game after the international break.