Chelsea have added a group of youth players to the first team squad to replace the slew of seniors who have been taken out by Covid.
It was pretty inevitable that this would have to happen – there simply won’t be enough players around for full training sessions if they don’t boost the numbers a little.
There were also complaints from Chelsea fans and fans of other teams that Thomas Tuchel left spaces on the bench for our last two games, when he could have called up youth players.
Our writer Simon Phillips then reported the news himself:
The youth teams have all completed their fixtures and training for the year, so any use of their players in the first team squad won’t affect their usual sides.
In fact, even if they were to catch Covid it wouldn’t be a disaster – they would be out of isolation in time for their next junior games.