A day after Chelsea starting center forward Alvaro Morata picked up a minor toenail issue while away on international duty, Chelsea backup center forward Michy Batshuayi has also gone down injured. And unlike Morata’s minor “annoyance”, Batshuayi’s injury is bad enough to have forced the 24-year-old to return to Chelsea.
Michy Batshuayi has left the Belgium camp to return to Chelsea with a foot injury. Got injured somewhere between Sunday and Tuesday. #cfc pic.twitter.com/bGfkLCxadF
— Kristof Terreur (@HLNinEngeland) November 9, 2017
According to Sky Sports, Batshuayi already had the “foot injury” before linking up with the squad, but whatever he’s done to aggravate it required x-rays with the Belgium medical team and now further assessments back at Chelsea. None of the reports go into any more specific detail on the nature of the injury itself, so it’s hard to guess what it may be or for how long it may rule him out.
‘When Michy arrived he was in pain. He has not trained since the squad met. He is out both games and has already returned to Chelsea.”
-Roberto Martinez; source: RTBF via Metro
There’s never a good time for injuries, but the timing is especially terrible for Michy since he was likely in line for a decent amount of minutes in the upcoming friendlies against Mexico and Japan as Belgium begin preparations for next summer’s World Cup.
If Batshuayi were to miss any time, it would also be a big blow for Chelsea, who face a busy month and a half through the end of the year, with games every 3-4 days and plenty of need for rotation — even if Batshuayi isn’t Conte’s most trusted option in the squad. Hopefully it’s nothing serious and all the x-rays and tests are just precautionary...