Injury boost for Chelsea as stellar summer signing returns to training

Chelsea defender Wesley Fofana returns to team training as injury woes continue to ease up

According to the Evening Standard, Chelsea defender Wesley Fofana has returned to full-team training this week ahead of the London derby against West Ham United on Saturday afternoon.

The return of the Frenchman has further eased up the injury worries for the Blues, who welcomed back fullback duo Reece James and Ben Chilwell in their previous game against Fulham. Raheem Sterling also made a comeback in that contest.

Fofana, the summer signing from Leicester City, has not featured for Chelsea since early October when he picked up a knee injury against AC Milan during a Champions League match.

He missed the World Cup as a result but returned to training during the mid-season break. The 22-year-old then suffered another setback when he picked up another niggle while playing a friendly game against Brentford in December.

On the other hand, Mykhailo Mudryk, who suffered a bad cold before the Fulham game and could only last 45 minutes should be okay to feature against West Ham this weekend.

Mateo Kovacic is still a mysterious case. He remains absent from training after missing out on the last two league games. It is not clear how serious his injury is.

Apart from that, N’Golo Kante, Armando Broja, Edouard Mendy and Christian Pulisic remain out. Despite that, the easing up of the injury woes would be welcome news for manager Graham Potter.

Joao Felix, who was shown a straight red card in his debut game against Fulham, has served his automatic three-game suspension and should be available for the game on Saturday.

More Chelsea News:

• N’Golo Kante is looking to extend his Chelsea contract after positive talks with the club
• Juventus are considering making a swap deal for Mateo Kovacic and Denis Zakaria
• Chelsea hope to complete the agreement soon for the contract extension of Thiago Silva

While all that spending in the January window was good, Potter would have wanted the injury issues in the squad to clear up. Slowly, but surely it is going in a positive direction. Let’s hope it remains the case for the remainder of this campaign.