Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic is very close to moving to Manchester City.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, as quoted by the club’s official website, Thomas Tuchel revealed that Chelsea duo Jorginho and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are injury doubts but Mateo Kovacic and N’Golo Kante could start against Wolves.
The Blues will travel to the Molineux on Sunday aiming to get back to winning ways. A disastrous performance against Everton on Thursday increased the gap between us and the title-chasing pack of Manchester City and Liverpool, leaving us four points off the top. Thus, a win on the weekend is of the utmost importance.
However, the Blues have four concerns going into the game. Timo Werner, Romelu Lukaku, Ben Chilwell, and Callum Hudson-Odoi will continue to be unavailable after testing positive for Covid-19 recently. But in a massive boost for the Blues, Kai Havertz is set to return to the squad as his results came back negative.
Mateo Kovacic also recently engaged in his first training session. Tuchel revealed there is a chance that the Croat and N’Golo Kante could start the game against Wolves due to the number of injury issues.
“We’re happy at the moment that Kai Havertz has more than one negative result, so he was back in training. Let us see. Nobody can enter the training crowd without a negative test. We left Kai out [of the Everton game] because he felt unwell. Mateo Kovacic is back in his first training session today.”
“Jorginho is a doubt for Sunday as he is in pain. Ruben Loftus-Cheek is a doubt because he is in pain…So maybe we start with N’Golo and Mateo? Would that be fair [on them]? No. Would that be possible? I do not know. But maybe we do it.”
The Blues may have several concerns, but they shall be facing a team having similar issues. Bruno Lage & co have been unlucky in recent weeks after narrowly losing to Man City and Liverpool despite putting in spirited defensive displays. However, they did pick up a victory against Brighton in mid-week.
But the Portuguese gaffer does have six selection problems ahead of the weekend game. He revealed on Friday afternoon that Yerson Mosquera and Fabio Silva tested positive for Covid-19, and they are doing a second test to be sure whether they are ‘real tests.’ Apart from that, they are still awaiting a fitness update on Hwang Hee-chan and Rayan Ait-Nouri.
The South Korean got injured 15 minutes into the game against the Seagulls after a challenge from former Blues starlet Tariq Lamptey. Ait-Nouri, on the other hand, got injured in the warm-up to the mid-week clash. Lage is still waiting to see whether the duo could feature on Sunday.
Additionally, Jonny Castro Otto and Pedro Neto shall continue to remain unavailable for selection due to their respective long-term knee issues. Thus, the Midlands club have quite a few problems in their squad as they look to beat the European champions in their backyard.
Both teams have been hit by the Covid-19 bug, not to mention the rising injury cases. Regardless, Tuchel and co shall be hoping to produce a convincing performance and take all three points back to Stamford Bridge.
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