Liam Rosenior addresses “conspiracy” around Chelsea player’s mystery fitness issue | OneFootball

Reece James’s fitness situation has been a little controversial of late, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change in the next 24 hours.

The full back played just ten minutes as a sub against West Ham, so we were all expecting him to play against Arsenal last Tuesday. But he didn’t appear – journalists said before the game that his minutes were being managed, only for his manager Liam Rosenior to report a “small knock” which had only just ruled him out.

All of that created a rather murky and confused picture, which was enhanced by the fact that he wasn’t in the squad for Saturday’s game against Wolves either. That “small knock” suddenly had kept him out for a full week, and the suspicions that something deeper was going on grew. Although Rosenior promised the full back would be back for Tuesday’s game against Leeds. But it turns out, he might not, as Rosenior’s latest update, from today’s presser revealed.

James fitness questions continue with defender potentially missing another game

Simon Johnson’s Tweet about the decision to rest Reece James.

“Reece is fit,” the manager said.

“But he is feeling unwell today. It’s no conspiracy, it’s the truth. Hopefully he’ll be well enough for tomorrow.”

We do believe him – but it’s a pretty hilarious situation, to have the guy everyone is scratching their heads over pick up a sudden illness and be unable to play. If he appears tomorrow after all, this will all be forgotten. If he doesn’t… the conspiracy continues for another week.

In other news…

Liam Delap is also getting a lot of criticism at the moment, but his goals per minute stat isn’t too bad. Maybe he just needs more time on the pitch?

Neto is struggling right now – yesterday was another poor game for the Portuguese winger, despite the contributions noted above. Only Alejandro Garnacho’s poor form and Jamie Gittens’ poor form is keeping Neto in the team right now.