Trevoh Chalobah to miss Liverpool match along with five others for Chelsea

Mauricio Pochettino was not asked perhaps the most perfunctory pre-match press conference question in his first official Chelsea pre-match press conference, so instead Chelsea have provided a brief rundown of the six players set to miss our opening game through injury.

Most of the names on the list are expected as they’re dealing with long-term injuries or recoveries from long-term injuries. The one player we had been unsure of was Trevoh Chalobah, who had picked up a right thigh problem in our friendly against Fulham a couple weeks ago.

Unfortunately, Trev has not yet returned to full training and he remains “in the process of reconditioning”, which sounds a bit extreme but hopefully includes only a physical fitness aspect. No need for a Ludovico Technique here!

Others to miss out include Wesley Fofana and Christopher Nkunku, who are out for six (minimum) and four months, respectively, with assorted knee injuries, and Armando Broja, who’s coming back from his own knee injury still. Third-choice (at the moment) goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli also remains out with a mystery issue — he hasn’t been seen all preseason.

In better news, Benoît Badiashile returned to training earlier this week, and while this game comes too soon for him, he’s now “at the end stages” of his rehab.