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No time to dwell on Sunday’s silliness at Old Trafford. In fact, Chelsea have already traveled to Istanbul, where we will conduct pre-match interviews, and then take on Liverpool in the UEFA equalivent of the Community Shield on Wednesday night.
The one bit of confirmed squad news is that Willian has traveled with the team, though it’s not yet clear if he’ll be ready for match action. Both he and Rüdiger were ruled out of the weekend’s curtain-raiser despite returning to (light) training last week. N’Golo Kanté did play the final 20 minutes off the bench, so hopefully that does mean he’s more or less match fit — if not for Wednesday, then for the weekend’s home opener against Leicester City. Callum Hudson-Odoi, Reece James, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek remain long(er)-term absentees, though only Loftus-Cheek is looking at significant recovery time still.
It should be noted that the likes of Billy Gilmour, Juan Castillo, and Marc Guehi all played in Chelsea Development Squad’s 1-0 win over Derby County in the PL2 on Monday, which makes them unlikely to feature in the Super Cup.
It’s hard to think of a tougher follow-up to Sunday’s massive margin of defeat than a semi-friendly against the Champions of Europe, but that’s the schedule and that’s what we must love.