Mauricio Pochettino has delivered an update on injuries to Romeo Lavia, Reece James and a host of players as he bemoans his injury-crisis for reducing the “competitiveness” in his squad.
Chelsea have nine players out injured after Lavia twisted his ankle in training last week, joining the likes of Christopher Nkunku, Wesley Fofana, Carney Chukwuemeka, Marcus Bettinelli and Trevoh Chalobah on the sidelines.
Armando Broja and Benoit Badiashile have returned to training but Pochettino began with a troubling update abaout Lavia, who has yet to make his debut since his £58million move from Southampton.
He begun discussing Lavia’s injury: “Yes, I think it is really disappointing because he was training really well last week in the international break.
“He twists his ankle and we are waiting until Monday for the doctor. We hope it is not a big issue but in the last week, he cannot train with the team.
“It’s a real shame in general because he was nearly fit enough to be involved with the team. Yes, now we need to wait for the assessment and hope it is not a big issue for him. We don’t know [how long he is out for] because we need to assess him about his time to recover.”
He added that Broja and Badiashile are both “not ready” for Sunday but there are hopes they could return in the next week.
Both Blues captain James and Chukwuemeka are doing ball work out on the training pitches on their own, while Pochettino hopes both Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo will be available after travelling from South America.
There is general concern, however, that Pochettino has too few players available and it is impacting their ability to be competitive in matches and on the training pitch.
He continued: “With all the circumstances we have been talking about in injuries it has made it difficult with the selections and competition between them and grow like a team.
“In the last two weeks we worked really hard but only with two or three players. It is only a matter of time. I think we have a really good squad and the circumstances are the circumstances.”
