Thomas Tuchel will be eager to return to winning ways as Chelsea welcome West Ham to Stamford Bridge this afternoon. The Blues currently sit tenth in the Premier League and have won just two of their opening five fixtures, which is a huge setback in the race for top-four.
It looked as if Chelsea recovered their turbulent start to the season after grinding out a 2-1 win over Leicester City, but a midweek defeat to Southampton sent the Blues back to square one. The west Londoners already find themselves a few points behind Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and even Manchester United in a tough run-in for Champions League qualification.
With West Ham out of form too, scoring just twice this campaign, Tuchel has been granted the perfect opportunity to reignite his side's form with the inclusion of Wesley Fofana. Unfortunately, deadline day signings Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Denis Zakaria will be absent from the squad, as confirmed by the Blues boss.
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Speaking to football.london, Tuchel spoke on the 21-year-old defender's arrival. He said: "Very because he is that kind of profile that we identified very early to replace Toni [Rudiger] and Andreas [Christensen].
"We are very happy that we stayed patient, super happy that Todd [Boehly] was relentless on it and never gave up. We managed to fulfil this transfer," the German added. "Wesley is young, he's fast, he's very, very strong in set-pieces, defending and attacking. He was one of the very early targets to replace our guys that left the club."
When asked whether Zakaria is going to be in the squad this weekend, Tuchel said: "No. I think we need to work on the latest information and understand that we need to work on the work permit. He will not be in the squad for tomorrow – it's too close. We hope for Tuesday and then for Fulham."
Then, on the availability of the rest of his squad, the Chelsea boss added: "They're back in training and are both available. So in the moment, it's only N'Golo [Kante] out. Everyone else is available. We had a group of 19 players [in training]. Then it will be 21 players with Auba and Denis."
So, with that being said, football.london has taken a look at the full squad Tuchel has at his disposal for Chelsea's highly-anticipated clash with West Ham.
Goalkeepers: Edouard Mendy, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Marcus Bettinelli.
Defenders: Reece James, Ben Chilwell, Marc Cucurella, Cesar Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva, Kalidou Koulibaly, Wesley Fofana, Malang Sarr, Trevoh Chalobah.
Midfielders: Jorginho, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Mason Mount, Mateo Kovacic, Conor Gallagher, Carney Chukwuemeka.
Forwards: Kai Havertz, Raheem Sterling, Armando Broja, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech.
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