Abraham, Anjorin, Hudson-Odoi first three back to officially start Chelsea preseason

The 2021-22 season began last week, on July 1st, and now Chelsea preseason is officially underway as well, as confirmed by the Chelsea official website today, July 9.

There had been stray reports that some players and loanees might start filtering back on Monday, July 5, but this is the first official confirmation we’ve had of training activities actually getting under way.

And the players are not coming back in alphabetical order, though it’d be easy to make that mistaken assumption, seeing as how Tammy Abraham and Tino Anjorin were two of the first three, with Marcos Alonso set to arrive this afternoon as well. The third player back is another Chelsea Academy star, Callum Hudson-Odoi, back from what looked like a fun time in his ancestral home in Ghana.

The rest of the team will start arriving back in the next few days and weeks, depending on Euro 2020 (and in Thiago Silva’s case, Copa América) commitments. It’s important to have some time off, especially for someone like Mason Mount.

Chelsea will reportedly head to Ireland like two years ago for preseason camp soon, and also have preseason friendlies scheduled against Arsenal (August 1) and Spurs (August 4). The season begins Wednesday, August 11 with the UEFA Super Cup and the Premier League that following weekend.

Hugs all around! Lovely to see.

(Also lovely to see, the new slick black and grey training kits.)