Thomas Tuchel doesn’t want to bring unvaccinated players to Chelsea

Thomas Tuchel said in a recent interview that the vaccination issue should be one of the factors in whether or not to bring in a potential reinforcement. He made the comments after Kanté and Loftus-Cheek were unable to travel to the United States with the team.

Chelsea will have to do without two players on their pre-season tour of the United States namely N’Golo Kanté and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Both footballers could not travel with the team as they are not vaccinated against covid.

The players will now train with the youth teams. But this is understandably not to the liking of coach Thomas Tuchel, who would like to have all his charges by his side.

“Yes, it must be one of the factors,” Tuchel said when asked by Tribuna whether the vaccination could influence whether or not to bring in the prospect. “I have to say it, vaccination is now a question of everyday life,” the England coach added.

“We can’t force players to get vaccinated. Now it’s normal to get vaccinated, but both players have decided to do the opposite. We have to stick to the rules, so they both can’t join us,” Tuchel said.

Kanté and Loftus-Cheek will currently train with the under-23 team, then they will even move to the under-19 team. “We don’t like it. It won’t be the same as with the first team. Our training cannot make up for that,” concludes Tuchel.

It should be noted that Tuchel’s opinion is not unique. Already more European teams prefer vaccinated players in their transfer policy. This way, they avoid the worries that Thomas Tuchel now has.

Source: The Telegraph, Tribune