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Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that centre-back Antonio Rudiger will miss Chelsea’s trip to Brentford on Saturday with a back injury picked up over the international break.
Rudiger missed Germany’s final match of the break because of a minor back injury and did not take part in Chelsea training on Thursday, but there had been cautious optimism that the 28-year-old would be back in action on Friday.
However, while the injury may not be too serious, Tuchel confirmed in his pre-match press conference that it was bad enough to rule Rudiger out of this one.
“Toni Rudiger is injured,” Tuchel said. “He came back injured from his national team, so he is not available.”
To make matters worse for Chelsea, fellow defender Thiago Silva will also miss the game after playing for Brazil in the early hours of Friday morning.
“He will be back in the afternoon hopefully,” Tuchel said of Silva’s situation. “We had our talk today [Friday] about Brentford, our tactical talk, and he missed all that. He played 90 minutes and has 12 hours of travelling, so that gives the answer about his availability.”
Tuchel then revealed that Christian Pulisic remains sidelined and could be joined on the treatment table by Hakim Ziyech, who has been battling a headache, but striker Romelu Lukaku is fit and ready to go.
Lukaku was released early from the Belgium camp after complaining of muscle fatigue, but Tuchel confirmed that was simply a precautionary measure to ensure he did not pick up a serious injury.
“Romelu is fine,” he concluded. “He’s done all the training sessions and will play tomorrow.”
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