In extended quotes from Friday’s press conference, Antonio Conte seems to reveal that he will recall John Terry to the starting lineup on Sunday, but will not give minutes to Kenedy and Charly Musonda. At least not yet.
"John is in a good shape and he's ready to play. He's doing great work on the pitch and outside the pitch. It's important to underline this."
While Conte doesn’t explicitly say that JT will start, the assumption is that he means as much by it. Terry didn’t exactly look too comfortable in a back three against West Ham in the League Cup, which is the first and last time he was tried there in a competitive situation, but that was many moons ago, and maybe he’s a bit more acclimated nowadays. We shall see.
The news was less positive for returning loanee duo Kenedy and Charly Musonda.
“For Musonda, for Kenedy, this month is important. They went on loan and it's important to wait this month [to see] what happens, to evaluate the situation in the right way and then find the best solution for the club and for the players above all.”
"We know now that if Musonda or Kenedy play one second with us, they can't go on loan. For this reason it's important to evaluate. Kenedy is training with us only two weeks, Charly only 10 days. It's important to evaluate these players and then make the best decision for the players, for the team, for the club and for me."
-Antonio Conte; source: ESPN
So that’s pretty clear. They can’t play because they’d get loan-tied and we’re not sure that’s something we want them to be just yet. On the plus side, at least they’re training with the team and getting a first-hand evaluation from Conte, which is more than most loanee hopefuls are getting. In the long run, should either Kenedy or Musonda have a future with Chelsea under Conte, even these few weeks of training should prove helpful.
This does complicate the lineup selection somewhat for Sunday, but we’ll get to hopefully see other youngster play instead, like Ola Aina, Chalobah, and Loftus-Cheek.