Thomas Tuchel has set Chelsea's performance and technical advisor Petr Cech the task of having a conversation with the England set-up to ensure that Reece James can recovery from injury correctly. The England international has missed Chelsea's last four matches after suffering from muscular issues and re-injury in recent weeks.
James had enjoyed a successful return to the Blues side after returning from his hamstring issue that kept him out for three months of the season. The wing-back wasted little time grabbing a goal and assist against Burnley on his Premier League return, but was barely returned to training in the aftermath of his set-back. The 22-year-old required late tests to see if he could participate in full team training ahead of the trip to Middlesbrough.
Tuchel is clear that he does not believe that James should join up with the England squad having been surprisingly called up on Thursday afternoon by Gareth Southgate. It won't be him having the chat with the Three Lions boss, however.
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"Petr Cech will have this chat because, of course, the recommendation is that he does not go," said the Blues boss. "He is still in individual training, otherwise, we would have brought him to Lille and we would have brought him here for sure.
"There is no doubt about it. He is still in individual training, he needs one more week of rehabilitation and I think we can provide this much better than – it is not the job of the national team to do this."
The Blues boss had a kinder offering for the Italian FA after resting Jorginho following his extensive run of matches. The German coach had a simple message for them.
He said: "Yeah, they owe me a big one! I will come back on this."
