League Cup: Thomas Tuchel Confirms Chelsea's Key Player Will Miss Aston Villa Game

Thomas Tuchel confirmed goalkeeper Edouard Mendy will not feature in Chelsea’s League Cup clash with Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

Mendy suffered an injury against Zenit St Petersburg last week in the Champions League towards the end of the game and that led to his absence in the Blues’ Premier League away fixture against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend. Kepa Arrizabalaga started for Chelsea and kept a cleen sheet as Thiago Silva, N’Golo Kante and Antonio Rudiger scored for the visitors.

After the 3-0 win in North London, Chelsea boss Tuchel had revealed that Mendy was not picked as he was not fully comfortable. The Senegal national is yet to resume training but Chelsea are hoping to have him back in time for their league game against reigning champions Manchester City on Saturday.

"Mendy cannot play tomorrow. He has not been in training so far so we will try to do everything for Saturday, to reintegrate him tomorrow for individual training and hopefully Thursday’s team training, but not yet. I think Saturday is possible but it's a race against pain and a race against time," Tuchel was quoted by Chelsea’s official website, as saying in a pre-match conference Tuesday.

Mendy, who moved from Rennes to Chelsea in the summer of 2020 at $30 million, helped the Blues win the Champions League in his maiden season. He kept a clean sheet against Manchester City as Kai Havertz had netted the only goal in the final in Porto.

"So let's see. I hope he will be back in team training on Thursday and if this goes well he can be ready for Saturday, but I don't know right now," added Tuchel.

Chelsea are unbeaten this season, with four wins and a draw in the Premier League and a 1-0 victory in the Champions League. Tuchel would want to continue his unbeaten run this campaign ahead of the League Cup meeting with Aston Villa.

“It's a matter of the number of games and the loads that we had for the players. There were some intensive games. I will not announce the line-up now but there will be some changes because we take the opportunity to give important minutes in an important competition to guys who are missing the minutes at the moment,” the German manager further added.