N'Golo Kante has travelled to Seville and could be involved in Chelsea's second-leg Champions League quarterfinal match against Porto on Tuesday.
The Blues hold a 2-0 lead over the Portuguese side after last week's first leg, which also took place in the Spanish city due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Kante was a late participant in that match, playing the final 10 minutes as Chelsea saw out the first-leg victory.
Kante also played the final half hour of Chelsea's 4-1 win at Crystal Palace over the weekend, showing improved fitness after feeling hamstring pain while on international duty with France last month and missing the club's three-goal loss to West Brom on April 3.
And while his minutes increased over the course of the last two matches, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel would not commit to putting Kante in the starting linup for Tuesday's second leg.
Tuchel says that Kante was originally set to miss the first leg against Porto in favour of a return in the Crystal Palace match, and his increased involvement over the past week may have set the 30-year-old's training regimen back a bit despite his positive play.
"The downside of this decision [to play in back-to-back matches] and this wonderful situation was that he lost a bit of sleep after the travel issues back from Sevilla," Tuchel said on Monday. "He lost some workload in training because he was on the bench and playing only a few minutes. The next day he suffered from travelling, he could not train like he normally would train so that was the downside and we decided again to bring him from the bench against Crystal Palace.
"This is now a decision I will take [Tuesday] morning when I see him today in training and then when we reflect on the others for the team in central midfield."
Given the nature of the injury, Tuchel feels that caution should be paramount. As influential as Kante is in the Chelsea midfield, it may be prudent to start the France international on the bench again, the coach said.
"Normally it is hard to imagine a game like this without 'NG,' but at the same time we need to be absolutely careful about him and that we don’t take risks with his health and with his injury situation," Tuchel explained.
"The question [Tuesday] is whether we want him to start or whether we want him to finish the game because there is also the possibility that it will go to 120 minutes. This is the question and honestly it is not answered yet, I will do this tomorrow morning."
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