Graham Potter sacked by Chelsea. (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)
Speaking in the pre-match press conference, as quoted by Football.London, Chelsea boss Graham Potter has addressed the constant injury issues surrounding the team and why this needs to be rectified soon.
The Blues have had a bit of rotten luck in terms of player availability due to injury issues of multiple squad players since the start of this season.
N’Golo Kante got injured in the second match-week back in August and hasn’t returned since, while Reece James and Wesley Fofana missed the World Cup due to their respective injuries picked up in October. The latter two came back and got injured again recently in games against Bournemouth in the league and Brentford in the friendly.
There are a lot more examples and instances of how it has been tough on the manager to pick his best XI. Here’s what Potter said regarding this issue (h/t Football.London):
“There is a little bit of bad luck but I don’t think you should throw it to something you can’t do anything about. There is an element of luck, of course, but then there are other things that happen.
“But that is for us to try and learn from and get better with. Again, it’s been a challenging season and I don’t know how pre-season was because I wasn’t here. I can’t comment on that.
“Sometimes you have these situations; Liverpool had one earlier in the season. So it can happen, especially when you are playing so many games in a short space of time. But without knowing the full extent of pre-season, it’s hard for me to comment.”
It’s been such a difficult period for the manager since being appointed as one at Chelsea in early September. He came once the pre-season was over and had to guide the team through a tough spell of games in tight turnarounds.
Even when there was a World Cup break that allowed the time for the squad to look healthier, it has not been the case. In fact, striker Armando Broja picked up a season-ending ACL injury in the friendly against Aston Villa earlier this month.
It all cannot be denoted as bad luck, right? The medical department of Chelsea needs to find the root cause of this problem, before it derails our season as if it hasn’t thus far anyway.
We play Nottingham Forest away from home on Sunday night (New Year’s Day) with the hope that the convincing win over Bournemouth on Tuesday marks the start of a good period for us on the field.
Then, the focus should shift on the January transfer window to look for options to add to the team. It seems almost spoilt for us to say that we need to spend during the winter after a busy summer window, but that is how it is – to compete with the best, we need quality across several positions in this squad.
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