Summary
- Chelsea’s Club World Cup news conference
- Man City, Spurs, Brentford, Villa & Palace news conferences
- England Women squad announcement (15:00 GMT)
Newcastle v Everton, West Ham v Watford (both 19:45), Burnley v Man Utd (20:00)
Communication with isolating Tuchel ‘a big challenge’
Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel will miss the Al Hilal game having also been forced to sit out the FA Cup win over Plymouth after testing positive for Covid.
Zsolt Low says he is unsure if Tuchel will be able to travel to the United Arab Emirates and admits maintaining effective communication has been a “big challenge” over the last few days.
“We are constantly in contact with Thomas, we’ve had lots of meetings together,” he said.
“We record the training and send it to him. We’re using video calling all the time. We change our ideas a lot of times in the day. We have good conversations to make it like he is here with us together.
“It’s a big challenge but we have a very good club structure with Chelsea. Petr Cech supports us well when Thomas is not here. We have a good medical staff, team management. We have a lot of support. And a lot of video calls with Thomas.
“He’ll support us as best he can and every day give us preparation in meetings. In the next days there’s the possibility to talk to the team.”
He added
Zsolt Low also confirmed that Reece James will not play on Wednesday despite travelling with the squad. The 22-year-old has not played since December because of a hamstring injury.
“Reece James, no chance he’ll play in the cup,” said Low.
“He’s in a good way but will still miss some days. He’s here to enjoy the group again.”
On goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, who has just won the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal, Low said: “Mendy will arrive probably later today or tomorrow and we’ll see how tired he is.
“He has to arrive first, we have to check him and talk to him. We’ll see if it’s possible he plays, maybe.”
Meanwhile.
Brentford boss Thomas Frank also confirmed that both Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa are available for Wednesday’s game but Tariqe Fosu-Henry is not quite ready to make his long-awaited return.
“Tariqe has trained fully with the team this week he needs to get some minutes,” said Frank. “Next week we will play a friendly match and those will be his first match minutes.”
After a run of five straight defeats, Frank added: “”It definitely feels like the smallest error is getting punished at the moment. We know it’s a matter of time before this turns around and goes the other way, as long as we put solid performances in.”
