Chelsea’s players are away with their national teams, and inevitably they are picking up injuries.
The Evening Standard reports hysterically on five players who have picked up issues in the last week, and while their assessments of the issues are correct, the are making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Let’s run through the five players they name. N’Golo Kante is by far the biggest loss, that’s true. But he’s training with France’s fitness coach and may well play for his country tonight. There’s no way you can rule him out for Saturday’s game at this stage.
Next is Mateo Kovacic. Again, while he is a first XI player, he only limped off before half time yesterday, and we don’t have any idea how bad it is. He could well also be totally fit to face Newcastle.
Andreas Christensen was the third player, picking up a groin injury against Switzerland. We don’t know how bad his problem is either, but either way Kurt Zouma has been neck and neck with the Dane so far this season, and it’s not a huge downgrade if the Frenchman has to play.
The other two problems mentioned are for Ethan Ampadu and Reece James. While it’s very frustrating to see them hurt, it doesn’t affect first team plans. In fact, Ampadu isn’t even at the club at the moment.
So while it’s ok to be concerned, until some of these players are fully ruled out, there’s no need to get hysterical.
