Piece by piece, this Chelsea squad are coming together. And about time too – there are just 15 days left until we start the season.
Marc Cucurella, Cole Palmer and Conor Gallagher (if he’s allowed to) are still waiting to join the first team when they return from the USA next week. But everyone else is now out there, including Copa America stars Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, and even new signing Filip Jorgensen.
One by one they’ve been integrated into team sessions, and with Caicedo the penultimate to join, there’s just one left – Nicolas Jackson.
Nicolas Jackson training separately in a smaller group while Moises Caicedo is taking part in the main session https://t.co/4g53zwXqEy
— Kieran Gill (@kierangill_DM) August 2, 2024
Jackson the next piece of the puzzle to slot in
The striker flew out to the USA with the rest of the squad, but has been troubled by an ankle injury he picked up on international duty with Senegal at the start of the summer. But he’s been on the road to recovery for a while, and it seems like he’s almost good to go.
The reports through this week were that he was training individually, even with Caicedo having now made the switch to the main group.
N I C O 🇸🇳#BluesInTheUSA https://t.co/cdFVWfFiik pic.twitter.com/ZbEZKYiBIz
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) August 2, 2024
But the photo in the Tweet above from the open training sessions yesterday ahead of tonight’s friendly against Man City shows Jackson defending the ball from Wesley Fofana, so clearly he’s now doing at least partial team work.
He hasn’t had enough pitch time to play tonight, but even in a worst case scenario he will ramp up through the course of next week and pick up some minutes in our two final friendlies. There’s no reason to think he won’t be fit and firing when we open our season with the game against Man City on the 18th.
Whether there will be another striker in the squad to compete with at that point is one of the most interesting questions left in the summer…
Im blue fun