With most of the squad off with their national teams this week, training was pretty quiet. There was something interesting to note however – the return of Reece James to full training for the first time since preseason when he picked up a hamstring injury.
It’s still going to be some time before the right back is match fit, and given how careful the medical team are being with his recovery, he’s certainly not in the picture to get on the pitch at all yet. But it does mean something quite amazing – Chelsea now have ZERO injured players, at least that we know about.
The Blues have finally cleared out their whole treatment room, a quite astonishing feat given the issues of the last few years.
Repeated long term injuries to players like James, Ben Chilwell and Wesley Fofana; combined with medium-term problems for Christopher Nkunku, Romeo Lavia, Marc Cucurella, Carney Chukwuemeka and others plus myriad short term issues have meant that there’s been a constant battle to get the squad up to strength for years now.
Chelsea seem to have turned the corner on injury hell
Last season alone, the BBC reported that we had 43 separate injuries in the squad. 20 players had injuries of some sort, and the club lost 1745 days to injury combined. At our peak, we had 11 players out simultaneously.
We don’t want to jinx it – and of course injuries are just part and parcel of sport. But there is a real sense that we’ve turned a corner, whether that’s just through the same luck that saw us pick up so many problems, through the change in manager and coaching methodology, or the new medical staff who have come in to the club over the last year.
