Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that Chelsea still has many doubts and injury concerns heading into their penultimate match of the Premier League season against Leicester City. Timo Werner has been ruled out of the Stamford Bridge clash with a hamstring injury which he appeared to pick up, warming up for the FA Cup final, while question marks remain over Mateo Kovacic, Andreas Christensen and Kai Havertz.
The Denmark international was a surprise omission from Chelsea's squad at Wembley, with it emerging Christensen pulled out of the squad. The Blues boss admitted that is a situation that has occurred multiple times in recent weeks but would not divulge the content of his conversations with the out of contract star.
As such, Christensen may already have played his last match for the club.
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Tuchel said: Not sure yet if he's involved tomorrow or on the weekend. Andreas came on the morning of the match to speak to me and tell me he is not ready to play the match, and to not start the match or be on the bench. He had his reasons, they stay private and confidential. It was not the first time as you can see over the last weeks as you can see we had some of the situations, that's why he did not play so regularly. We thought we were in a good progression and good development because he played very strong in the match before the final against Leeds. The conversation took place, we had to respect it and of course respect. He still has our support but for tomorrow I'm not sure. [For the weekend] probably unlikely, it was on very short notice before the cup final and not only before this match. No chance I have any prediction."
However, Ben Chilwell returned to training on Tuesday after time spent with Chelsea under-16s and 18s following extensive rehabilitation on the ACL injury he suffered against Juventus in November. Tuchel embraced the wing-back at Cobham, before leading a round of applause from the first team. Kai Havertz was absent from that session as he took part in individual training after a late fitness test ruled him out of the FA Cup final, while Kovacic's ankle injury could see him also miss the remaining fixtures given the amount of swelling.
Tuchel explained: "Kai tries today in training, he did individual training yesterday, was not in team training so still a bit question mark. Timo is out with hamstring, Ben Chilwell was back in training which was very good news yesterday and an uplift for everybody. Well deserved and so nice to see him back in training but of course he is not available for the match. As you can imagine, Kova had a big swollen ankle after the match, so not sure he will be back."
It was more bad news for Callum Hudson-Odoi too as Tuchel added: “He dropped out of the squad from one day to the other more or less. Still, in individual training, progressing but not in team training. He will come early in pre-season like Chilwell to start a programme to be back on July 2 with team training.”
