Jakarta –
Chelsea must fight raking three points in the visit to Aston Villa. With players coming on under duress, there are new injuries.
Chelsea won 3-1 at Aston Villa headquarters, Monday (12/27/2021) early morning WIB in the match Boxing Day Premier League. Left behind to a Reece James own goal, The Blues won thanks to two Jorginho penalties and a Romelu Lukaku goal.
This match also marks the return of Lukaku after being absent due to COVID-19. As well as scoring goals, the Belgium international striker also won a penalty after coming on as a substitute.
But this victory must be paid dearly by Chelsea. Thiago Silva and N’Golo Kante are both injured at Villa Park.
Manager Chelsea Thomas Tuchel highlight how Premier League unfair to the team. They must continue to play even though there are a number of positive cases of COVID-19 in the team, thus burdening other players who can compete because the squad is thin.
Chelsea previously lost Callum-Hudson Odoi and Lukaku to COVID-19, while Kai Havertz and Timo Werner are still sidelined at this time. Chelsea had asked for the match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 19 December to be postponed, but was rejected by the league.
BBC note that that means Chelsea have played all eight games in all competitions this December. They will face Brighton & Hove Albion on Thursday (30/12) early morning WIB.
“The situation is like this, but it can’t be the right way. It’s not fair. We were all bedridden for 10 days and we played against teams who prepared with more time because their game was postponed, and who prepared with one hour. a full week for these kinds of games,” Tuchel was quoted as saying BBC.
“They keep us playing all the time, even though we have COVID cases. We have new injuries and it doesn’t stop. People at the courts, in the office, make these decisions.”
“We struggled, we put pressure on the players. I have the highest respect for what the players did. We did experience changes because of injuries, but not for tactical reasons anymore,” said the German manager.
A total of 15 Premier League matches have been postponed so far this December, with the most recent being Arsenal vs Wolverhampton. Last week positive cases of COVID-19 topped 90 among players and staff, which is a record for two years of the pandemic.
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