Tuchel hoping to have Reece James, Mason Mount back in training next week

Injuries have been a major constant in the way our season has gone, especially in the Premier League, and while such things are always a factor, they have seemed especially impactful this year, especially at wing-back.

Fortunately, while Ben Chilwell’s lost for the season, if not longer, Reece James is slowly making his way back, and after a recent setback, is hoped to be able to rejoin training soon. James had traveled with the team to Abu Dhabi for the Club World Cup, but he’s continued to train on his own and was not yet ready to rejoin the main group. It’s now hoped that can happen next week — though it’ll probably take a bit longer for him to truly catch up to match fitness.

“He is still in individual training, progressing a lot, doing almost everything you can do in individual training and we are waiting for him. The plan is he will rejoin the group next week.

“It is a long time now. we are speaking about seven weeks, eight weeks. I know that everybody in the physical department is doing an excellent job, so once he is in the team training we can rely upon that he did a lot and he is ready to be under a certain amount of pressure and of freedom of movement and acceleration, otherwise they will not make him free for team training.”

In more good news, Mason Mount’s ankle injury looks to be less severe than initially expected, and he’s reportedly targeting a return in time for the League Cup final next weekend. Tuchel’s a bit less optimistic in that regard, but either way, Mount’s not expected to be out too long.

“Yeah, we will push for the League Cup final, we will push, and he has injured ligaments in the very first minute of the [Club World Cup] final, unfortunately. So the Champions League [midweek] seems to be very, very close and we’ll try hard for the League Cup final.

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Fooball.London

So that’s certainly good news all around, and with Ruben Loftus-Cheek now back in training as well!