https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2021/12/19/
tuchel-confirms-request-to-postpone-today-s-game-was-rejected
Tuchel confirms request to postpone today's game was rejected
19 Dec 2021
Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that a Chelsea request to postpone today's
game with Wolves was rejected by the Premier League.
https://i.imgur.com/8xq25Qr.jpg
The Blues arrive at Molineux with several players missing through injury
and covid, with Tuchel left frustrated that the game goes ahead as planned
when the security and health of his squad are currently at major risk.
With more and more players returning positive covid tests over the past
few days, Tuchel believed there was a strong case to call off the fixture.
'Yes, we did ask to postpone the game,' Tuchel confirmed when speaking
ahead of kick-off. 'We thought we had a strong case [to postpone the game]
regarding the security and the health of the players.
https://i.imgur.com/Mvk8zdW.jpg
The Blues arriving at Molineux earlier
'We have seven positive cases and every single day, we've had another
positive case coming in. We travelled together for three hours on the bus,
we are in meetings together, we have lunch and dinners together. The
situation does not feel like it will stop.
'We applied to not play this game and to try and have some time to get the
situation under control but it was rejected. It's very hard for us to
understand this but it doesn't matter because this is the outcome.
'We are very concerned about the health of our players. We left Kai
[Havertz] out against Everton even though he was negative, we sent
Jorginho home even though he was also a negative test so we can protect
the health of our players.
https://i.imgur.com/v2kkjc9.jpg
'Because of this, we are now in a position where we are having to play
players either from the start or on the bench who have only just come back
from injury or from covid. We have to take this risk now.
'We play N'Golo Kante and Trevoh Chalobah from the start today and this is
a huge risk because they are both not long back from injury. So we hope
today goes well.
'From a medical point of view, I'm very worried because we have had four
consecutive days of positive tests in the squad.
'How will this stop if we carry on and pretend it's not happening? This is
my opinion and it's the medical opinion but it's not the opinion of the
Premier League, so we have to play.'