A series of injuries, mostly of the hamstring variety, limited Emmanuel Emegha to just 18 appearances for RC Strasbourg last season, and unfortunately the young striker’s rotten luck appears to be continuing. He picked up another hamstring strain in Chelsea’s behind-closed-doors friendly win against Bromley the other day, and that’s now ruled him out of our entire preseason tour (not just the start of it).
The good news is that the striker is not expected to be out for too long, though obviously it’s
not great that he’s missing out on the tour and the training time with Xabi Alonso. The 18-year-old has scored in both of our behind-closed-doors friendlies that had been held since the start of preseason training at Cobham — 3-1 against Crawley Town and 3-0 against Bromley — but now he’s had to stay behind and is not expected to rejoin before the squad return to England in three weeks.
Emegha is battling with Liam Delap and Nicolas Jackson for the backup striker role behind João Pedro, and right now, that seems to be anyone’s opportunity to convince Alonso and win the job.
(The other surprising name to stay behind for fitness reasons at Cobham, Geovany Quenda, is expected to join up with the squad shortly, thankfully.)
