Reece James ruled out for ‘up to a month’ after re-injuring knee

We had been fearing the worst, but fortunately it looks like Reece James will “only” miss a few weeks after re-aggravating his knee in his comeback attempt yesterday. The 23-year-old right back completed the first half without any problems (and with plenty of positive impact on our play), but tweaked his knee a few minutes into the second half before making way in the 53rd minute.

While he was able to eventually walk off without any assistance, the reaction on the pitch and on social media afterwards wasn’t exactly promising. (His personal trainer stirring the pot, by now of course deleted, didn’t help either.) Earlier today, James had even posted a note on his Instagram story about how the setback “hurts more than anything” and how he doesn’t quite understand just yet what lesson he’s supposed to learn in “such a bad situation”.

So it’s perhaps surprising that not long after, Chelsea officially announced that Reece is only “set to be ruled out for up to a month”. Not great, to be sure, but certainly not the worst outcome. Reece himself then posted an update as well, putting his recovery timeframe at “3-4 weeks”.

Obviously, given the way this situation has developed over the past couple months, the first thing to make absolutely sure of this time around is that James does in fact recover fully and is in fact ready to take on the rigors of a Premier League match before making his next start ... even if that takes a bit longer than expected right now.

Stay strong!