Thomas Tuchel has warned want-away Chelsea star’s that the club’s injury crisis are set to stop transfers out of Stamford Bridge in this window.
The German coach today confirmed that N’Golo Kante will be out for “weeks” with the hamstring suffered against Tottenham. And Armando Broja and Mateo Kovacic are also out of Sunday’s trip to Leeds while Christian Pulisic is suffering from “Achilles problems”.
The American is among Blues players linked with moves away from Chelsea this summer. Conor Gallagher is wanted by Newcastle and Crystal Palace while Callum Hudson-Odoi and Broja are wanted on loan by other Premier League clubs. But before Sunday’s visit to Leeds, Tuchel said a busy fixture schedule - with the Champions League group stages starting next month and finishing before the November World Cup - means he needs all his stars.
“We will not encourage our players to go out at the moment,” he said. “We have had two training sessions with 18 players and in a schedule where we play once a week, it is not a problem. But if I look a little bit, raise the chin up a little bit and look at the schedule that is coming with Southampton during the week and two Champions League matches, it’s coming.
"It’s in front of the door. We will need a lot of players and quality players to be competitive. At the moment, as I said, we have what we have. We know what we’re looking for. From there we go and only from there we can think about letting players go.”
Broja went on loan to Southampton last season but Tuchel told the Albanian centre-forward he has a role at Chelsea - and there would be no point in a spell at another club. “We know enough about him but it’s one thing to perform on a loan and another to perform within a club like Chelsea,” he added.
“This is the next step. While he is doing the next steps, he was injured in pre-season and is injured again. This does not help his own ambitions and does not help us, of course, in having a clear view on what he can give us but given the size of the squad at the moment it is a huge chance for Armando to have an impact at Chelsea.
"I understand this is his clear ambition, his clear goal to make his step here. It’s on him. He gets full support, he has our trust and full support. Here we go. Unfortunately, now he is injured again in such a short period of time and held back for this reason.”
Chelsea have completed the £12.6m signing of Inter Milan midfielder Cesare Casadei while negotiations continue over Wesley Fofana and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. But Tuchel insisted he was the “opposite of frustrated” about the pace of transfers following the 2-2 draw with Tottenham.
“I’m very happy, very confident after last week’s performance because I saw a good team, a very good team performance, an excellent match,” he claimed. “We work together on reinforcements but it’s never easy and it’s not that we can just wish for something and it will happen.
"As long as the transfer window is open, there are always possibilities. We know what we are trying, we know what we are doing. The focus is on what we have, not what we could have. This is the team, they get their full energy and full attention from us.”
