The team news for tomorrow’s Chelsea game is pretty straightforward – and that’s always a good sign.
In his first presser for a fortnight, Thomas Tuchel confirmed in quotes picked up by Football.London that Ben Chilwell was out (well, we could have told you that in January…) and that Callum Hudson-Odoi was also not fit to play.
“Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ben Chilwell will miss the game tomorrow. Callum still feels his Achilles a little bit and has some lower back problems. Everyone else was in training. It is always a challenge to come back after these breaks. Everyone was all around the world with different experiences, some of them very successful, some of them not. Some played a lot, others have jet lag. It’s always a challenge coming back. It’s time to regroup and go again tomorrow.”
It sounds like he’s more concerned with the players who are unavailable because of excessive travelling in the break (likely Christian Pulisic and Thiago Silva) than he is with the injury situation.
The most important team news though, was that Reece James IS back, and will be in the squad tomorrow at the very least.
“Ready to go,” Tuchel said of his right back.
“Reece is in the squad for tomorrow.”
From the way Tuchel was speaking, we strongly suggest that James will start too. That adds a huge amount of strength to the team, and hopefully will be the boost we need to win a trophy from this final run of matches this season.
