The club captain has now recovered from his latest hamstring setback.
Maresca said: "He's back, the last game against Ipswich he was with us just to be with us on the squad; the plan was not to give him any minutes.
"Tomorrow is different, we can give him minutes, so hopefully we all know how important this game is for us, so hopefully he can get minutes very soon."
Chelsea meet Palace on the back of consecutive defeats and Maresca also said on Friday: "I'm always concerned even when we win games, but I don't think it's bad form, I think it's just analyse game by game, against Fulham we were winning 1-0 until 82-83 minutes and then we conceded two goals. Ipswich probably was not our day in terms of, I don't know how many chances we created, clear chances, but probably their desire not to concede and to win the game was higher than us."