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Football London
Football London
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Scott Trotter

Major stars missing, Reece James boost - what we learned in Chelsea training ahead of Luton Town

Chelsea make the trip to Kenilworth Road on Wednesday to take on Luton Town in the FA Cup fifth round.

The Blues play in their fifth different competition in as many matches as they look to bounce back from their Carabao Cup final defeat to Liverpool to progress to the quarter-finals.

Thomas Tuchel's side have already defeated lower league opposition in the FA Cup in Chesterfield and Plymouth Argyle, but the Hatters offer another step up having won four of their last five matches in pushing for the play-offs in the Championship.

Their task has been made more difficult by a squad feeling the impact of recent weeks and extra-time being played on multiple occasions.

Speaking ahead of the clash against Luton, Tuchel noted: "The [injury] situation was very, very good before the match, because we had only Ben Chilwell out. Then the situation changed almost dramatically from this match.

"Now we have a lot of players in physical overload and we have some injuries from the match. It's actually too much to comment because it would be a long list, so we need to see.

"We had training today, the physios, the doctors are still working with the players to find out and we can take the last decision tomorrow morning when we have the departure to Luton.

"We will see who's ready to play, because we want to be ready to play but we suffered. It's now the third time we've played overtime, it was an intense match and this is where we are."

The Blues have since released a variety of images from their training session and football.london has taken a look to see what information they can glean.

Youngsters involved

As they often have this season, Chelsea relied on some of their academy stars to take part in training at Cobham.

Harvey Vale, Lewis Hall and Dylan Williams all featured in Tuesday's season to help the squad prepare for the FA Cup.

Hall and Vale both featured in Chelsea's first FA Cup fixture this season against Chesterfield before missing out on the squad for the visit of Plymouth Argyle, with the former producing an imperious display as he completed 90 minutes.

Dylan Williams and Harvey Vale of Chelsea during a training session at Chelsea Training Ground (Darren Walsh)

The 18-year-old Vale made Tuchel's matchday squads for matches against Crystal Palace and Lille, following the first team's return from Abu Dhabi, but missed out on the Carabao Cup final. The academy star will hope he can find his way into the squad once again on Wednesday evening.

Williams has yet to appear in the FA Cup but made the bench for Derby's defeat to Coventry, and was in first team training for the second time with the Blues.

The trio were involved in the main session alongside the likes of Jorginho, Timo Werner, Ross Barkley and more figures.

Reece James smiling

After a lengthy spell on the sidelines Reece James finally made his return to the pitch at Wembley when he was brought on in the second half against Liverpool. It was the first time he had featured since December after setbacks in his rehabilitation and the 22-year-old looked remarkably up to speed against one of the toughest teams in the world.

Tuchel offered some warning in his press conference, that appeared ominous in it's implication after he spent more time on the pitch in the Carabao Cup final than expected following the injury to Cesar Azpilicueta.

The Blues boss said: "Brilliant form but now with a huge overload on his shoulders. The recommendation was 20 minutes before the match and it was over 70 in a final with extra tension against Liverpool."

However, James was pictured in the recovery session led by Adam Burrows with other first team figures such as Antonio Rudiger, Marcos Alonso, Kai Havertz, N'Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic.

While this is no guarantee he is ready to play immediately, it's encouraging with other players from the performance missing completely.

Players missing

Hakim Ziyech and Andreas Christensen missed Sunday's final through injury with the former being confirmed by Tuchel as out for the trip to Kenilworth Road. It appears the Denmark international is yet to recover from his Achilles issues. Azpilicueta appears to remain out for the moment after he required a substitution against Liverpool following a knock.

Thiago Silva and Edouard Mendy were missing from the released images too and did suffer bangs of their own over the course of the 120 minutes on Sunday.

At one stage in the first half the Brazilian was on the floor holding his upper ribs before taking a tablet to continue playing, while Mendy his the ground a couple of times later in the game after some brave saves

There is no suggestion either has a confirmed injury but given Silva in particular has played every minute for Chelsea since the Blues last FA Cup fixture where he was not in the squad at all, it may be finally time to offer the veteran a rest.

List of players photographed: Kepa Arrizabalaga, Reece James, Antonio Rudiger, Malang Sarr, Marcos Alonso, N'Golo Kante, Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Saul Niguez, Ross Barkley, Mason Mount, Kenedy, Timo Werner Romelu Lukaku, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Christian Pulisic, Harvey Vale, Lewis Hall, Dylan Williams

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