1 player returns and 2 more drop out – Chelsea team getting weaker every week | OneFootball

Mauricio Pochettino has just had his press conference at Cobham, where he gave a little more detail on some of the injuries listed (and not listed) on the club’s injury report this week.

Let’s start with the good news. After getting the night off in Chelsea’s 5-0 defeat to Arsenal on Tuesday night, Cole Palmer is going to be ready to go this weekend. “We assume he is going to be available and part of the squad, yes,” the coach said, not exactly filling us with confidence but a green light nonetheless.

Then we came onto the medium news: Levi Colwill and Reece James are training, as we saw in yesterday’s pictures, but as expected they’re not going to be around for this week’s game:

“They are not available yet. They are close. They were doing partial training, but they are not available,” Pochettino explained.

Now the bad news. The new players added to the club’s injury list today. That included Raheem Sterling, Malo Gusto and Carney Chukwuemeka:

“Sterling suffered pain in his lower back. Carney felt something in his knee related to his problem before. We hope it is not a big issue and can be available as soon as possible.”

We had Chukwuemeka lined up for a start on Tuesday with so many players out, so we had already suspected an injury when he didn’t feature at all. This is another step back for him, in a second consecutive wasted season. Even if this is a minor problem and unrelated to the bad knee issue which wiped out the first half of his campaign (and we pray to God it is), it’s still another game or two missed. There are only 6 left to play this season.

The confirmation that Malo Gusto is still out is even bigger in terms of immediate first team impact, with Ben Chilwell also missing on the far side.