Mauricio Pochettino’s press conference today had the latest update on the confusing Christopher Nkunku injury situation.
Here’s the story so far to get you up to speed: Nkunku arrives in the summer, gets injured in preseason, and then misses the whole season until last month.
He returns, plays a couple of times as a sub, then finally gets his first Chelsea start against Crystal Palace on the 27th of December.
Treating him with great caution, Pochettino leaves him on the bench to start the game against Luton 3 days later. Last week, ahead of the game against Preston, we hear that he has “issues” from training and won’t start in Saturday’s FA Cup game.
In the end, he’s not on the bench either. After the game, Pochettino gives a further worrying update, saying the club need to figure out how long he will miss.
That’s then rebuffed by claims from France, which say his absence was purely precautionary, and that he will be fit for this week’s games.
Now we reach today’s latest chapter: Pochettino has basically confirmed he will NOT play tomorrow, but could be back at the weekend:
“It’s not related to his old injury, it’s a different problem. A small issue in his hip, not in his knee, we are cautious with him because it is six months from his injury, and he was involved in few games. He won’t be involved tomorrow, we will see for Saturday. We are not sure, we are going to be cautious. It’s not related to his old injury, it’s a different problem. A small issue in his hip, not in his knee, we are cautious with him because it is six months from his injury, and he was involved in few games. He won’t be involved tomorrow, we will see for Saturday. We are not sure, we are going to be cautious.”
We’d like to think it’s as simple as that. But given the twists and turns so far, would anyone be amazed if we don’t see him against Fulham on Saturday?
