Xabi Alonso had some excellent news in his press conference earlier today, revealing that Moisés Caicedo, João Pedro, Cole Palmer, and Reece James are all ready to play this weekend after being able to return to training this week. This quartet of key players have all been dealing with injuries over the past few weeks, causing them to miss international duty, in addition to any missed time with Chelsea prior to the break.
The news is especially welcome in the case of Caicedo, who’s missed practically
the entire season thus far. He tried to come back a few weeks ago, but that 14-minute spell on the pitch only served to re-aggravate things. Hopefully he’s now fully healed and truly good to come back.
“Yes, [Caicedo] is ready to go. [We] have used the time with Moises to [get him] back fit. He’s been training good and he’s okay to go.
“Yes, [JP, James, Palmer] have been able to train [as well]. Some of them earlier than others. Marco Palestra as well. So, we have used the time and that was the plan. We knew that against Brentford we were with some players struggling but now they have trained well and they are ready to go.”
-Xabi Alonso; source: Football.London
Palestra also hasn’t been seen since impressing in preseason, so hopefully he can make his debut and make an impact in games that count now, too.
Let’s go!
