One would think that a manager would be happy to have pretty much his entire squad available to him, but as Pat Nevin pointed out in his column on the official Chelsea website, it creates plenty of headaches too.
Frank Lampard now has the team who played in the last game back in March, plus all those players who have since returned from injury.
The break has been so long now that there’s no point picking players on their “form”, and it’s not even clear which players will have maintained their fitness best over the long layoff.
It really will come down to who performs best in training, making this a vital 2 weeks for the squad to impress.
As Nevin also notes, there are those like Willian and Pedro who will be on their way out of the club the moment the games are done – are they worth picking? Will they be motivated? What about Billy Gilmour, who was so brilliant in the two games before the shutdown – does he keep his place?
There are so many exciting questions bubbling up now, and we can’t wait to find out the answers.
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“Football in England changed with that Southampton team of 2013-14, there is no other team that had as big an impact in changing the mindset.” – Who modestly said this about their own side? Find out here.
