3 Chelsea players test positive for Covid-19 before Everton clash
By Tom Gott
Three unnamed Chelsea players have tested positive for Covid-19 in the build-up to Thursday's Premier League meeting with Everton.
Thomas Tuchel is already without Mateo Kovacic, who tested positive last week and will be free to return to training on Friday.
According to Nizaar Kinsella, the Blues have now identified three more positives, and while there is no mention of who has contracted the virus, the belief is that all three were involved in a group training session on Wednesday.
Of those three, two were believed to be in Tuchel's plans for the game.
Nick Purewal adds that as it stands, the positive cases are not a threat to the game, with no further Chelsea players returning a positive test on Thursday meaning this cannot be classed as an outbreak.
Everton arrived in London around the same time as the reports of Chelsea's positive tests emerged online.
Chelsea will be incredibly reluctant to postpone the game unless absolutely necessary, given they remain in five competitions and are already losing a chunk of their Premier League time to the upcoming Club World Cup.
The Blues don't exactly have a lot of numbers for squad rotation either. Kovacic is in isolation, Ben Chilwell is injured and both Trevoh Chalobah and N'Golo Kante are only just returning to action after spells out through injury.
Jorginho and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have been carrying their own issues, while striker Romelu Lukaku is still lacking fitness after a spell out with an ankle injury.
Elsewhere, Tottenham's meeting with Leicester has been called off as a result of both sides dealing with their own outbreaks.
Brentford boss Thomas Frank led the call for this current round of fixtures to be postponed, calling for a circuit-breaker while the number of cases continues to rise.