Chelsea take on Juventus in the Champions League on Tuesday and both Romelu Lukaku and Kai Havertz are doubts for this encounter.
Lukaku has been on the sidelines for a few weeks now but was supposed to return this past weekend. But unfortunately, that game came too early for him and now Thomas Tuchel has admitted that the forward is not a surety for the Juventus game either.
‘I am not sure yet on Romelu,’ the manager told the press. ‘We have one more training, yesterday he was in team training and seemed okay. Let’s see about the reaction. He has right now today an appointment with the doctors and the physios to see about the reaction, to see about the next training.
‘We have the chance to bring 20 players to the squad, maybe we have the chance that he is in the squad for the last minutes, but that will be the absolute maximum we can get out of the situation right now.’
It looks like Romelu Lukaku will have to go through a late fitness test and this is going to be a really tense scenario because Kai Havertz is also expected to miss Tuesday’s encounter.
The manager added: ‘We had to take Kai off because of hamstring problems. He felt a bit of tension in the hamstrings, so we took him off and we have some doubts with him. We need to check and see if he can train without any problems, so this is more or less the question mark.’
Will Romelu Lukaku play against Juventus?
The doubts over Romelu Lukaku and Kai Havertz are a really big problem for the manager but the saving grace is that Timo Werner is back to full fitness.
Step by step..🔋 pic.twitter.com/2TWqF5HML9
— R.Lukaku Bolingoli9 (@RomeluLukaku9) November 17, 2021
Havertz has been holding the fort in the absence of Lukaku and Werner so if he is not available then it will obviously be an issue for Tuchel. But with Timo Werner available, the void can be easily filled up.
Romelu Lukaku might have an outside chance to be named in the matchday squad but we are not sure if he will get a starting role on Tuesday.
As things right now, Timo Werner is in line to play up front with possibly Mason Mount and Hakim Ziyech playing behind him. The form that the Blues are in right now, they will be the favourites to pick up a win but the German hasn’t particularly been in great form so playing him through will not be a very likeable decision for Thomas Tuchel.
TRIVIA:
BBC somehow have put all their research to preview and analyze Chelsea vs Malmo, clearly forgetting that it’s Juventus who are coming to London this week.
FYI they have corrected it now.
