Chelsea may be without club captain Cesar Azpilicueta and Timo Werner for tomorrow’s Premier League trip to Crystal Palace, Thomas Tuchel has confirmed.
Thomas Tuchel said: “Of course, Ben Chilwell is out and the two you mentioned [Mount and James]. We have some doubts about Azpi, we need to check today. He felt a bit of discomfort in training the day before yesterday so we need to see him in the training. And to add, Timo Werner has caught a cold so it [the game] seems like it comes too early tomorrow.”
There is hope Mount will be able to make his return ahead of the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool on February 27. That match may come too soon for James, though, with Tuchel confirming the academy graduate has not yet been reintroduced to first-team training following his hamstring injury.
Thomas Tuchel said: “I had the feeling right from the very start that we had to deal with a big injury and unfortunately, my feeling was right. We had a little bit of a setback because he caught the flu in the moment when he was very close to rejoin team training. So this was a setback. Like always, you always have the risk with a very physical player like Reece is, a big muscle injury that you have to consider that sometimes there is a delay in the comeback, which we are right now. So he is still in individual training, progressing a lot, doing almost everything you can do in individual training and we are waiting for him. The plan is he will rejoin the group next week. It is a long time now. We are speaking about seven weeks, eight weeks. I know that everybody in the physical department is doing an excellent job, so once he is in the team training we can rely upon that he did a lot and he is ready to be under a certain amount of pressure and of freedom of movement and acceleration, otherwise they will not make him free for team training. I don’t know [exactly when he’ll be back]. Every time I would say would be wrong. It would be guessing. I hope he can come back to team training next week. That is the next step then I can maybe give more insight.”
