Chelsea face another tough test of their Premier League title credentials this weekend as they take on West Ham United.
It has been an extremely quick turnover for the Blues having only beaten Watford on Tuesday evening.
It all means that Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has not had all that much time to prepare for the showdown with the Hammers at the London Stadium as an extremely busy festive period begins to take hold.
Nevertheless, the majority of the current Chelsea squad have been in the thick of the action at Cobham and football.london takes a look at the clues that the Blues might have dropped ahead of Saturday’s game.
Werner and James back from injuries
It is fair to say that Chelsea have suffered from what is a lengthy list of injury worries throughout the current season.
That continued during the victory against the Hornets in midweek, with in-form right-back Reece James ruled out with a knock, whilst Timo Werner who has also been recovering from recent weeks was named as an unused substitute.
In what is a big boost for the Blues though, both players were spotted participating in Chelsea’s latest training session.
Whether that means they will be in contention for the clash with West Ham remains to be seen but it is a positive sign to see the pair getting involved in preparations.
Malang Sarr in contention
Whilst questions remain over the potential availability of both James and Werner, there is a huge problem for Tuchel to solve ahead of the game with the Hammers after Trevoh Chalobah was injured.
The young defender sustained the problem against the Hornets and Tuchel has confirmed he will miss out this weekend.
Whilst the Blues have a number of talented defenders in the form of Thiago Silva, Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Cesar Azpilicueta, one option that could be afforded a chance in Chalobah’s absence is Malang Sarr.
The young Frenchman was spotted getting involved in Chelsea latest session and would be ready to be called upon.
Tuchel has certainly surprised supporters in the past by starting the former Nice man against Brentford and could potentially do that again this weekend.
Tuchel changes tactic
There have not been all that many problems with Chelsea this season as the Blues sit top of the Premier League.
However, one frustration this term has been the amount of times the side have been caught offside. Only Burnley and Manchester United have been caught out by the linesman’s flag on more occasions during the current campaign.
Tuchel may have found a solution to try and fix this though. The squad appeared to participate in a mix of rugby or American football during their latest training session.
Of course, with the Blues being forced to play backwards, they are surely less likely to commit offside offences.
It will certainly be intriguing to see whether this is a deliberate tactic being employed by the former Borussia Dortmund man but it would not be a surprise if he did take a somewhat unorthodox approach to training.
