Four games into the Thomas Tuchel era and Chelsea are yet to concede a goal to their opponents. In their 2-1 win over Sheffield United today, the Blades only got on the board via an Antonio Rudiger own goal. Chelsea got the win though, getting rescued by a Jorginho conversion of a penalty kick.
Ahead of kickoff of this match, the Chelsea community was all a buzz about the omission of both Christian Pulisic and Kai Havertz from the team. The most expensive American player in history and the most expensive German of all time were both left out entirely.
Tuchel has provided an update post-match as to why Pulisic missed out on the win.
“Christian has some family issues to resolve and family is always first so we decided to give him a rest for this game.”
So that puts to bed all the speculation that Pulisic once again had an injury issue with his hamstrings. As for Havertz, he only just returned to training after picking up an injury earlier on this week. Central defender Thiago Silva missed out as well, but that was to be expected, after he suffered a thigh strain in the win over Tottenham on Thursday.
Chelsea, who moved up to fifth place in the table with the win, are next in action on Wednesday, when they’ll face Barnsley in the 5th round of the FA Cup.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.