Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has revealed that he expects
midfielder N’Golo Kante to recover from injury in time to face
Arsenal on Sunday, when he could be joined by new teammate
Romelu Lukaku.
Kante missed the 3-0 win over Crystal Palace at the weekend after
complaining of an ankle injury following the Super Cup triumph
against Villarreal, with Mateo Kovacic taking his usual place
alongside Jorginho.
Chelsea coped without the Frenchman during the game, after
which Tuchel confirmed that he expects to see Kante back in time
for the trip to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
“N’Golo felt discomfort in his ankle on Friday,” said Tuchel (via the
club’s official website). “He felt it in the warm-up to the Super Cup
match against Villarreal and he already played a little bit in pain and
overcame the pain in that game.
“But on Friday he felt it again and we decided to take him out and
not to take any risk now at the beginning of the season. I think
N’Golo will be back in the middle of the week to hopefully be ready
for Arsenal.”
The boss then changed his focus to Lukaku, whose mandatory
quarantine period is has finished. The £97.5m signing is now free
to link up with his new team and prepare to face an Arsenal back
line that was just ripped apart by the physicality of Brentford’s Ivan
Toney.
“We expect Romelu to finish quarantine in time to be able to join
team training on Tuesday, because Monday is our day off,” he said.
“So we will try to prepare him to play against Arsenal and hopefully
he can be on the pitch.”
Tuchel even hinted that Lukaku’s return could lead to a change in
formation as he searches to find a way to keep his plethora of
attacking players happy.
“With the addition of Romelu, we get the number one striker and
we want to have him on the pitch,” Tuchel said. “This is very clear.
If you do this kind of transfer, we are absolutely sure we want to
have him on the pitch, but I think he will lift the pressure off the
shoulders of the young guys, from Kai [Havertz], Timo [Werner] and
Christian [Pulisic], because Romelu is the kind of personality who
loves responsibility.
“I think we have now with Romelu the chance also to play with two
strikers, like they did at Inter with him, or to continue with three
strikers. We will see now how this works out and we will find a
solution for the players around him.”
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