Thomas Tuchel insists he has no regrets over letting Tammy Abraham, Olivier Giroud and Michy Batshuayi leaving Chelsea in the summer, as he faces a difficult time with something of an injury crisis up front.
Both Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner went off injured during the Champions League win over Malmo in midweek and will be out of action for at least the next two matches.
Lukaku has suffered a twisted ankle while Werner pulled a hamstring during the 4-0 win, leaving Tuchel with no recognised strikers to choose from.
Having fallen out of contention under the German, Abraham left for Roma, Giroud moved to AC Milan and Batshuayi has gone out on loan to Besiktas.
It would seem that having one or more of those players to hand now would be of great use to Tuchel but he says he has no regrets and is happy with the club’s choice to let them all depart.
‘No because football doesn’t work like this,’ Tuchel told a press conference when asked if he had any transfer regrets.
‘You cannot keep a squad of 40 players. What… do you think, Tammy, Oli or Michy would be in perfect shape now if they haven’t made the 18-man squad in the last six weeks?
‘Of course, in theory it would be like this, of course, but in real life you have to focus on 19, 20, 21 players and this is what we do.
‘Like I said, nobody wants this to happen. It’s a bit of bad luck that now we have two injured players in the same position so we have to find solutions, we will find solutions, and we are focused on that.
‘There’s absolutely no worry about the decisions we did in the summer.’
The Blues are in good form, sitting top of the Premier League table and luckily for them do not have the trickiest run of fuxtures ahead of them without Lukaku and Werner.
On Saturday they host Norwich before Southampton travel to Stamford Bridge in the League Cup on Tuesday night.
They are the only two fixtures that the strikers have been completely ruled out of as yet, with some hope that they could return for the trip to Newcastle in the Premier League on 30 October.
Tuchel said of the pair: ‘What I can tell you for sure is they are both in treatment, positive and not worried, but out of the next two games for sure.
‘From there we see what is next, I don’t think it makes any sense to go into speculation about how long this is going to be.
‘The fact is you never know, things can be longer than expected, shorter than expected.’
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