The headline news from Chelsea’s latest injury report was that Ben Chilwell had picked up a new knee injury, and we’re still waiting to hear more about that.
Also fresh on the list was Conor Gallagher, who is ill. He hasn’t trained, and it sounds very unlikely that he plays on Monday night.
So who will fill in? The perfect candidate is Carney Chukwuemeka, who looked great in a similar role to the one Gallagher has been playing, way back at the start of the season before he got a bad knee injury.
Like so many other players this year, Chukwuemeka has had a couple of false starts in his return from the problem. He started playing a little at the end of January and start of February before disappearing again.
His status on this injury report was “to join team training” – and pictures showed him here in the session yesterday.
We’re not sure what that means, or when a return is likely, but it’s a real shame he couldn’t make that last comeback stick, as he’d be getting a lot of minutes now. Monday night is made for him.