Good Afternoon Ladies and Gents.
Today I am going to be taking a look at why Reece’s return from injury this time is different to any before and bringing you his latest interview with the official Chelsea FC website.
My Opinion:
Ever since Reece picked up that first hamstring Injury under Thomas Tuchel, it has never been fixed or dealt with properly. I remember the game it was Brighton at home and Reece was tasked with playing Left Wing-Back, we had recently lost Ben Chilwell to an ACL.
Since that night it feels like Reece has barely been able to string any consistent games together, although I am being slightly over the top with that comment, we have constantly rushed him back and pushed him to play and that is because since that time under Thomas Tuchel’s reign we have been seriously out of form and udner pressure to succeed. Obviously we have had some good spells in there, towards the end of the 21/22 season but other than that the results have been poor and pressure is on everyone at the club.
The biggest problem Reece has suffered is his own brilliance, which is why we always tend to rush him back and play him the minute he is in a squad, Poch has taken a fantastic approach to reintegrate him into the starting XI and I am CERTAIN he will not hesitate to rotate and rest Reece as he feels necessary.
At the end of the day we are a much much better side when Reece James is fit and firing, as we have proved in recent weeks. Luckily we have Malo Gusto now who can more than adequately cover and perform in Reece’s absence.
Going forward I believe that we may start to be seeing the end to Reece’s injury woes, BUT I don’t want to jinx that or make myself look silly IF anything was to happen in the coming weeks.
Reece’s Interview snippets:
'There are times you feel things, but all you want to do is play,’ Reece tells us. ‘Then you push and realise something has happened.
'My body gave me a warning, but I didn’t listen. I’m more aware now when something is screaming, slow down a bit.’
‘I haven’t felt this good in a long time,’ he says.
‘I definitely feel my strength and fitness building up again. Recently, I’ve been able to play consistently. I haven’t been able to play 90 minutes yet, but I’m training and playing hard, and pushing the limits every day to get back to my best level.
‘I’m happy to be helping the team again as well. After almost three months out, it takes a while to build back up and find your form again. Some people think as soon as you come back you should instantly be at the level you left at, but it doesn’t work like that.
'You have to move slow and steady. That’s what I have been doing. I’m slowly progressing.’
You can read the full interview below:
Luke Rushbrook