Thomas Tuchel says deadline day signings Denis Zakaria and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are in contention to make their Chelsea debuts against Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday evening – but there is no Thiago Silva in the travelling squad as the Brazilian has been allowed to skip the match and undertake recovery work at Cobham.
The Blues begin their Champions League campaign in Croatia and will be confident of starting the group stage with a victory. They have been aided in that pursuit by the additions of Zakaria and Aubameyang, who arrived in the final hours of the summer transfer window from Juventus and Barcelona respectively.
Neither were able to feature in the weekend win over West Ham United but Tuchel has confirmed the duo are ready to make their first Chelsea outings tomorrow evening in Zagreb. Silva, however, will be absent as he has been given a rare break in what will be a relentless September.
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Tuchel explained: “We decided with Thiago that he will have a break from travelling and from the stress after he played every minute so far in very intense matches. It was the moment to give him a break instead of putting him on the bench and having travel issues. So he takes care of his recovery.
"And it meant we could bring everybody who was in training and available to do our last training here, it includes Denis and Auba. He had a test with his mask and felt fine, normal. If everything goes well today then they will both be available."
The Chelsea head coach continued: "He [Aubameyang] is very ambitious, very focused. He is hungry to play for us and hungry to prove a point. That is why he is here and it's what we felt from the first moment. He is happily invited to prove a point tomorrow. If there comes an issue today [with Aubameyang's mask] we will not put him in the team. There was no issue yesterday and I hope there will be no issue today.
"Is he ready to start? Of course, but I think he cannot play 90 minutes. So it's on us to take a decision as to how we manage the minutes. That he needs minutes to get full fitness and rhythm is clear so it's on us to find a solution if he's on the bench of starts."
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