Good morning, Chelsea fans. Here is your morning digest for Saturday, October 17.
Returning stars create selection headaches for Lampard
Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has all his attacking options available for the Blues’ clash with Southampton this afternoon.
Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic are both fit, and the pair will add to the plethora of talent already at Lampard’s disposal – Callum Hudson-Odoi, Mason Mount, Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, Olivier Giroud, and Tammy Abraham are challenging for a starting role.
But these are the selection headaches that Lampard wanted, with the competition for places expected to drive on his squad.
“Any team that wants to compete towards the top of the league and into the Champions League needs more than one player per position,” Lampard said.
“It needs to be competitive across the front area. We had it last year. We lost Willian, we lost Pedro, we lost Batshuayi.
“We’ve brought players in for the same level of competition in terms of numbers and I feel like the quality levels of players of the options we brought in...of course you want to improve.”
Eyes are cast on Chelsea’s training session
Football.london’s Chelsea correspondent Oliver Harbord spotted several intriguing things from the Blues’ training session ahead of the game with Southampton.
He points out that N’Golo Kante was involved despite doubts over whether the French midfielder would be fit after picking up a muscle injury while on international duty, and that summer signing Ziyech, who is yet to make his competitive debut, was also part of the session.
So too was fellow new arrival Chilwell, who withdrew from the England squad during the week.
Harbord also writes that Hudson-Odoi was sporting a large bandage around his head after suffering a cut during training with the England Under-21 squad during the international break.
Lampard offers injury update ahead of Southampton clash
Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy won’t be fit for the game against Southampton, Lampard has confirmed.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference, the Blues boss explained that he hoped that the Senegalese stopper’s injury would not keep him out too long – and revealed that he had not yet made a decision whether to replace him with Kepa Arrizabalaga or Willy Caballero.
Lampard also revealed that defender Thiago Silva is unfit following a long trip back from South America, where he captained Brazil against Peru, and gave hope to Antonio Rudiger, who has not featured since the opening weekend of the campaign.
He said: “The players all know that and the beauty of the window being shut is that we can get to work and we know what the squad is and they can contribute, we will need them and rely on them because of the amount of games we will play.
“Toni is the same as every other player on that one.”
