Tuchel will turn to fringe players for Bees cup clash

Thomas Tuchel has indicated that he will use Chelsea’s fringe players in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final at Brentford.

With a number out because of Covid-19 and others affected by injury problems, the Blues boss is expected to put out a below-strength team against the Bees.

Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner and Callum Hudson-Odoi remain unavailable as they are still isolating after recently testing positive for Covid.

Players from Chelsea’s development squad have been training with the first team with a view to them being involved.

They included Lewis Baker, who was going to feature in the game, but he has tested positive for Covid and will therefore miss out.

But there is better news on Jorginho, who was thought to have contracted the virus.

There appears to have been a so-called false positive, with Jorginho since testing negative.

But Andreas Christensen and Trevoh Chalobah are highly unlikely to be in the squad as both are nursing injuries.

And N’Golo Kante will not be considered, having played the full 90 minutes at Wolves after his recent recovery from injury.

Boss Tuchel confirmed: “Jorginho had a negative test, so it was a wrong positive, and he is back in training.

“Andreas Christensen is very doubtful and the same for Trevoh Chalobah.”

Tuchel wanted to ease Kante back into the team but had to rely on him at Wolves because of Chelsea’s shortage of players.

The match went ahead after the club’s request for it to be postponed was rejected by the Premier League.

Tuchel therefore has no intention of selecting Kante on Wednesday.

The German explained: “What we did with N’Golo Kante – 90 minutes – was close to being irresponsible.

“Will he be involved in the squad now against Brentford? No. Simply no.

“I will not do it and we will now give him time to recover.”