Reece James injury blow forces Chelsea into rethink that could define their season | OneFootball

Blues captain facing spell on sidelines with latest hamstring issue

Chelsea have certainly had better starts to a week than this.

News Pedro Neto has escaped a ban for shoving a ball-boy and is consequently available for tonight’s Champions League last-16 second leg against Paris Saint-Germain was drowned out by the Premier League imposing its largest-ever fine, £10.75million, on Chelsea for illicit payments made to agents during the Roman Abramovich era. That was followed by news of a new hamstring injury that could keep Reece James out for weeks or even months.

James is expected to be sidelined for several weeks

Chelsea FC via Getty Images

We have not yet reached the March international break and yet already, with 36 appearances, James has played more this season than he has in any campaign since 2021-22. Fans have feared an injury for James as the months have rolled on and he has stayed fit.

And now, four days after he signed a new long-term contract with Chelsea, the captain is out for an extended period that has led some even to question his participation at this summer’s World Cup, where he was nailed down as England’s starting right-back before this setback.

Chelsea and head coach Liam Rosenior must quickly regroup. They are losing their best defender but also a footballer so technically good and an athlete so impressive that he is trusted - and rightly so - to ditch full-back in order to run the Chelsea midfield in their very biggest games. This season against Arsenal, Liverpool and PSG, for example, he has been an all-action central midfielder, not a swashbuckling right-back.

Alternative options exist, but Chelsea lose something when James is not on the field.

In midfield, Rosenior will have to persist with Andrey Santos alongside Moises Caicedo, as he tends to prefer using Enzo Fernandez not as a No8 but as a No10.

It is at right-back where James’s absence will feel most bruising for a team clinging on to their Champions League status, both this season’s and next’s. Malo Gusto is the obvious, and a capable, deputy, though perhaps not tonight.

Gusto skipped training at Cobham on Monday due to illness and is a doubt to face PSG. Rosenior may have to call on centre-backs Josh Acheampong or Trevoh Chalobah to deputise there. Caicedo may even be asked to return to a position he played occasionally under Enzo Maresca.

To question Chelsea’s young squad for its supposed dearth of leadership is, by now, a point made so regularly that it has become a cliché. But then clichés are often rooted in truth. Chelsea are losing not only their captain but one of their few leaders - a leader by example - in James, and they don't yet know for how long. That is no welcome development during a difficult run-in.

And yet what can they do? Rather than starting his fourth game in a row tonight, James must begin a period of absence that could come to define Chelsea’s season for the worse, not the better. They must find workarounds, to ensure it does not.