With the football season over, attention is turning to this summer’s international tournaments.
It’s not just the Euros and the Copa America – there’s also the Olympic Games, taking place in Paris. France therefore want to put out the best team possible, and have assigned legendary former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry as their coach.
He’s called up one Chelsea player – Lesley Ugochukwu – although he likely would have wanted more. His comments to the press this afternoon reveal he was knocked back in his attempts to get more Blues in his group:
“I asked questions about players, I was told, ‘no, it’s not possible, you can have Ugochukwu’, I know it’s not me who said that, that’s what happened,” the coach explained.
“As you can see, Chelsea just left me Ugochukwu, so there is Ugochukwu, that’s all.”
Poor Lesley – Henry is hardly making him feel like he’s man here, is he?
A fair compromise – although Henry might not agree
Henry doesn’t mention those players he was denied by name, but we can already infer from who else was available that the other players he was talking about were Malo Gusto and Benoit Badiashile.
This seems like a fair compromise to us. Ugochukwu needs minutes, while the other two need a rest. Chelsea wil do everything to keep their players happy up to a point, but when you start seriously jeopardising next season, you have to draw the line.
Henry has no shortage of talent in that group – is there any country in the world with as much depth in talent as France? We’re sure he will survive. Ugochukwu should also benefit from getting some actual competitive match action instead of preseason. Missing out on some sessions with the new manager isn’t ideal, but he should at least join up with the club in good physical shape.
TERRIBLE NEWS-WRITER SUPERFRANK IS A LOSER IN LIFE.
Both players mentioned have missed big chunks of the season Chelsea had at worst 14 senior squad members out and for most of the season 8 to 10 per match it’s the club that pay the wages and it’s little benefit when they get poultry sums when a player misses through injury 2 3 4 games after sustaining injury for a ridiculous international injury….how many international breaks have there been this last season 4 or 5 after a world cup and some European league effort it has gone beyond the ridiculous with Chelsea qualifying for being 6th to enter a Mickey mouse conference league no one really considers it to be no more than the coco cola cup and a complete distraction and possibly another way to rack up long and short term injuries.