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Bobby Vincent

What Graham Potter has done to change Chelsea training as N'Golo Kante missing ahead of Salzburg

Chelsea held an open training session at Cobham on Tuesday morning as Graham Potter prepares for his first match in charge of the Blues.

Potter takes on Red Bull Salzburg for his first Chelsea match, and it's also a debut in the UEFA Champions League for the new head coach. It's somewhat of a one-off match, with Chelsea's Premier League clash with Liverpool, which was postponed, with the Queen's funeral on Monday.

So for Potter, this is a chance to experiment with a few things while also being desperate for three points after last week's 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in their opening match of the tournament. It will be really interesting to see what sort of side Potter plays at Stamford Bridge tomorrow night.

READ MORE: Trevoh Chalobah makes Kalidou Koulibaly confession as Chelsea star sets goal under Graham Potter

Today's training session, which was streamed on Chelsea's official website, may have given him a bit more of an indication to what he is going to do. With that said, football.london has rounded up the biggest talking points from the session – all of which can be found below.

Kante missing

As expected, really, N'Golo Kante was the one outfield absentee from Tuesday morning's training session. The France international has been sidelined since picking up a hamstring injury against Tottenham last month.

The 31-year-old midfielder is expected to be out until after the international break, at least with the problem. This leaves Potter with the likes of Conor Gallagher, Jorginho, Mateo Kovacic, Mason Mount, Denis Zakaria, Carney Chukwuemeka and Ruben Loftus-Cheek to choose from in the centre of midfield.

Different warm-ups

As expected, when a new head coach – and his whole backroom staff also come in – arrives, the training session will look completely different. We saw the players being put through their paces at Cobham with two drills we've never seen at Chelsea before.

The first one saw the players heading it to another player before spinning around, then jumping into a square of cones. The instruction from the coach was "stiff leg, then everyone push to the right" once they were in the cones.

More coaches at Cobham

In the background overseeing the session, there were noticeably more coaches there. Potter brought in five members of his backroom staff with him from Brighton after being appointed last week, and that was noticeable here, on top of the coaches who kept their job following the departure of Thomas Tuchel.

There were 21 players out there at Cobham, and in honesty, it looked as if there were the same amount – if not more – of coaches.

Positive team spirit

There were plenty of smiles around Cobham despite what has been a turbulent week or so for the squad. They saw Tuchel leave the club last week in what came as a shock to everyone.

However, there looks as if there is almost a renewed energy around the training ground following the introduction of Potter. Let's hope that shows on the pitch tomorrow night as Chelsea welcome Salzburg to the capital.

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