Chelsea TV had reported on Monday that all players other than Charly Musonda Jr participated in training, but Antonio Conte had some worse news in his press conference this afternoon, revealing that David Luiz has picked up a knee(?) problem (again?). The official website reported this as a “new problem” while the Twitter account went with “knee problem”. Listening to Conte, it could be both. Either way, David Luiz is out and it’s unknown for how long.
Conte reports David Luiz (knee problem) and Charly Musonda are out, and Michy Batshuayi and Kenedy are trying 'to come back to 100 per cent'.
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) November 28, 2017
In better news, Moses is back from injury (but needs a bit of time to “find the best physical condition”) and both Batshuayi and Kenedy are “trying” the same as well.
Conte was asked to clarify at the end of the broadcast portion of the press conference to clarify whether it was a “new” injury or recurrence of David Luiz’s previous knee issues, which have affected him ever since Sergio Aguero’s latest five-second angry now over a year ago, but the Chelsea head coach deferred to the doctors instead and press officer Steve Atkins chimed in that the club will give an update when the extent of the injury has been diagnosed.
“In this moment it’s very difficult to answer this question. The doctor will assess the situation very well and then take the best decision for the player.”
-Antonio Conte; source: Chelsea FC
David Luiz played and got through the full 90 minutes last week against Qarabag and was on the bench for Saturday’s game against Liverpool, with young Andreas Christensen starting as now usual in the middle of the back three. David Luiz had been bothered by a right knee injury at the end of October, but seemed to recover fine from it during the November international break. Hopefully this latest issue is also just minor (and also nothing to do with the supposed conflict between him and the head coach, either).