Chelsea FC have been dealing with a couple of minor knocks during their summer preseason tour of the United States, with some small fitness issues pertaining to defenders Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah. Manager Mauricio Pochettino didn’t want to risk his full-back in the 4-3 win over Brighton on Saturday.
“Reece arrived two days ago and today was a big risk, I told you in the press conference yesterday, big risk for what?” he said after the friendly in Philly.
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“He is training hard, if we believe he is ready to play for Wednesday, for sure he is going to play.”
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James had missed the initial flight to the United States, due to his suffering from an illness on the day that the travel party departed. He also had a precautionary scan on his knee back at the Cobham facility in London, after completing the first week of training.
As for Chalobah returned to action in the win over Wrexham, coming off the bench to feature as a substitute.
“The thinking was only that Chalobah feels something in his Achilles,” Pochettino said after the 5-0 blowout of Wrexham in Chapel Hill.
In the last five minutes, we had the choice to play with 10 or 11.
Having covered Chalobah and James now, there are no fresh injury issues within the squad, ahead of the Newcastle clash on Wednesday night.
All of the other players who will miss out on this match are long term injury absentees.
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