Pre-season begins, but no training just yet

Cobham is all set for the staggered player return this week

We all expected to be seeing brand new images of Chelsea players and coaches in their fresh new training gear on Monday afternoon. However, they were nowhere to be seen.

Admittedly, I’d assumed Chelsea were going to start training again on Monday, with the players trickling in on a staggered approach.

However, it seems there was never a training session planned, despite Cobham being all setup and ready for the big return.

I believe that the coaching staff and some players have started arriving at Cobham to do Covid-19 testing and settle back in to their surroundings, but no actual training will take place until later in the week.

So pre-season has started officially in the sense of the calendar, but no actual training sessions have taken place as of yet.

Chelsea of course wont have any of the players back who featured in the Copa America or the Euros for another good couple of weeks yet, they will be granted time off before returning.

So we are expecting to see the players who have not played any summer tournaments such as Callum Hudson-Odoi and Marcos Alonso just for example, as well as returning loan players like Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Ross Barkley, Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Guehi, Tiemoue Bakayoko etc.

It will be a great chance for some of these players to try and impress Thomas Tuchel ahead of the new season, and it could be last chance saloon for them at the club.

Simon Phillips