Timo Werner, César Azpilicueta doubtful for Chelsea’s match against Crystal Palace

We’ve got some late breaking team news from the latter portion of Friday’s press conference, with head coach Thomas Tuchel revealing that Timo Werner and César Azpilicueta are doubtful for Saturday’s game against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. Both players had been spotted in training during the week, but are now likely to miss the cross-town trip.

In the former’s case it’s just more bad news in a season already greatly affected by injury and illness, with Werner limited to just four Premier League appearances since mid-October thanks to a hamstring strain and a case of COVID-19 as well. And now he’s battling a cold as well — and hopefully just a cold.

In the latter’s case, it’s some unspecified “discomfort” felt after the training session on Thursday, which presumably means some sort of (minor?) physical problem. Azpi has started six in a row, and has been practically ever-present as we started shuffling the squad around in the wake of Ben Chilwell’s injury, starting 15 of our last 18 games, which basically puts him in Antonio Rüdiger territory.

“We have some doubts about Azpi, we need to check today. He felt a bit of discomfort in training the day before yesterday so we need to see him in the training.

“And to add, Timo Werner has caught a cold so [the game] seems like it comes too early tomorrow.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Football.London

Hopefully neither player is kept out too long. We have some big games coming up and sure could use a few weeks with a shorter injury list than we’ve had for much of the season.

Photo by Chris Lee/Chelsea FC