Chelsea staged an open training session at Cobham on Tuesday morning as Graham Potter prepares to take command of the Blues for the first time.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Potter’s first Chelsea match comes against Red Bull Salzburg, and it is also the new head coach’s first appearance in the UEFA Champions League. It’s a one-off game, with Chelsea’s Premier League match against Liverpool postponed due to the Queen’s burial on Monday.
So, for Potter, this is an opportunity to try new things while being eager for three points following their 1-0 loss to Dinamo Zagreb in their first encounter of the competition last week. It will be fascinating to watch what kind of team Potter puts out at Stamford Bridge tomorrow night.
Today’s training session, which was live on Chelsea’s official website, may have given him a better idea of what he’ll do. With that in mind, football.london has compiled a list of the most important talking points from the session, which can be seen below.
Kante is absent.
N’Golo Kante was the lone outfield absentee from Tuesday’s training session, which was to be expected. The France international has been out since injuring his hamstring against Tottenham last month.
The 31-year-old midfielder is anticipated to remain out until after the international break, at the very least. In the centre of midfield, Potter has Conor Gallagher, Jorginho, Mateo Kovacic, Mason Mount, Denis Zakaria, Carney Chukwuemeka, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek to pick from.
Various warm-ups
When a new head coach – and his whole backroom team – comes, the training session will appear radically different. At Cobham, we watched the players put through their paces with two drills we’d never seen at Chelsea before.
The first one included the players directing it to another player before turning around and diving into a square of cones. Once within the cones, the instructor instructed them to “stiff leg, then everyone push to the right.”
Cobham has more coaches.
There were definitely more instructors in the background supervising the training. Potter took five members of his backroom staff with him from Brighton after being appointed last week, and that was obvious today, in addition to the coaches who maintained their jobs following Thomas Tuchel’s departure.
There were 21 players at Cobham, and it appeared that the same number – if not more – of coaches were present.
Positive group spirit
Despite the squad’s tumultuous week or so, there were plenty of smiles around Cobham. Tuchel abruptly left the club last week, which surprised everyone.
However, it appears like there is a newfound energy surrounding the training area as a result of Potter’s entrance. Let’s hope that appears on the pitch tomorrow night when Chelsea hosts Salzburg in London.
