Chelsea are sweating profusely with test results showing captain Reece James injured his hamstring during a recent training session.
James is being assessed specifically for his injury after experiencing problems in training on Wednesday and Chelsea hope to be able to know for sure how long he will be out in the next 24 hours.
The English right-back was absent at the end of last season because of a hamstring injury, sitting out the last 7 matches of Chelsea’s 2022/23 season. He was back to his best form ahead of the new season, being named captain and starting Chelsea’s opening game of the season against Liverpool on Sunday.
James was withdrawn after 76 minutes at Stamford Bridge but manager Mauricio Pochettino allayed any concerns by insisting that his replacement was due to fatigue and not injury. However, James now has Chelsea worried about the possibility of a recurrence of the injury after the accident on the training ground.
James has missed a lot in recent seasons with injuries, and Chelsea’s results are also clearly affected whenever he is absent.
Anyway, Chelsea have signed French player Malo Gusto from Lyon, a highly rated right-back, for around £30m as a backup for James.
Meanwhile, Trevoh Chalobah’s injury also dealt a heavy blow to Chelsea’s ambition to return to the top 4 race as well as the championship. Chalobah originally had a small hamstring problem and the minor problem became a big deal during training. He is expected to be out for about a month.
He was absent for Sunday’s game but has featured in four of Chelsea’s warm-up games, notably playing the full 90 minutes against Newcastle, then only coming on for the last 14 minutes against Fulham. because of injury.
