Chelsea take on Brentford in gameweek eight of the Premier League and Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that he will be without some really important players this weekend.
The first and perhaps the biggest miss will be Thiago Silva who’s playing for Brazil on Friday and will only make it back to England on Saturday afternoon.
The defender is not injured but Tuchel has made it clear that fatigue is a major concern so he’ll not be putting Silva on the pitch vs the Bees.
The defensive worries will be further amplified as Antonio Rudiger has come back injured from national team duty and will also be a spectator on Saturday.
Apart from these two, Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech are also set to miss out.
The manager said in his press conference: “Thiago will be back in the afternoon tomorrow, hopefully safe from this match in Brazil.
“We had our talk and tactical training, he missed all that. He played 90 minutes and had 12 hours of travelling so that gives you the answer.
“Toni Rudiger is injured, came back injured from the national team. Christian Pulisic is still injured. We also have doubts with Hakim Ziyech who has missed the last couple of sessions with a headache.
“Romelu is fine and will be involved tomorrow.”
Thomas Tuchel will not be too worried about Pulisic and Ziyech’s absence since he has plenty of top-quality forwards at his disposal.
But it’s the defensive areas that will be a headache for the manager.
Brentford’s Ivan Toney has been bullying defenders left right and centre this season and we’re not sure if players like Chalobah and Christensen will be able to put up with the physicality of the Bees forwards.
Tuchel will have to heavily depend on his forwards to see this game through since we don’t see Chelsea keeping a clean sheet on Saturday.
