Chelsea are less than two weeks from restarting the season and there isn’t much time left to get back to some semblance of match fitness. On Wednesday, the Blues took on another team for the first time in almost exactly three months as Championship side Reading made the short trek up the road for a closed-doors friendly at Cobham.
There’s no video (yet?) of the event, but apparently Chelsea won thanks to a goal from Pedro. Judging by pictures, all first-team players other than Callum Hudson-Odoi and Reece James took part in the match — the two youngsters had been carrying knocks.
From looking through photos of today’s match I’ve seen :
— CarefreeYouth (@CarefreeYouth) June 10, 2020
Arizabalaga, Cumming, Lawrence, Azpilicueta, Tomori, Rudiger, Christensen, Zouma, Alonso, Emerson, Gilmour, Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek, Mount, Willian, Pedro, Pulisic, Abraham, Giroud
Two of the more welcome of all welcome faces among the players was Ruben Loftus-Cheek, going on 13 months now without match action, and N’Golo Kanté, who had decided just this week to join the squad in training after holding out due to health concerns over COVID-19.
For the visitors, we welcomed back Chelsea loanee Matt Miazga, who served as Reading’s Captain Miazgamerica, and former Chelsea prospect John Swift, now in his fourth season with the Royals after leaving Chelsea in 2016. Always rated Swifty!
Hopefully we’ll get some sort of highlights video soon of the event, from either Chelsea or Reading.