Chelsea boss Tuchel gives injury update.

Chelsea will be without key players when they travel to Watford [GETTY]

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has given an injury update on his squad ahead of their clash against the Hornets.

Ben Chilwell, Mateo Kovacic, and N’Golo Kante all missed the Blues’ clash against Manchester United over the weekend and are going to be absent again for Chelsea’s Premier League clash against Watford.

Tuchel also revealed that he will have to make a late call on Reece James, Jorginho, and Timo Werner as he waits to assess the trio’s fitness tomorrow.

Striker Romelu Lukaku, who recently returned from injury and featured in the 1-1 draw on Sunday, is fit to be part of the squad that will travel to Vicarage Road.

Speaking ahead of the match against Claudio Ranieri’s side, Tuchel said in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday: ‘Romelu is pretty easy. He came on in the last match and he has continued to train with the group.

‘He is ready to progress in minutes and this is where he is at right now.

‘For the game tomorrow at Watford, for sure we will be without Chilly, Kova and N’Golo who are all out and then we have some doubts over some other players that we need a bit more time on, to do some examinations on before deciding whether they can be involved.

Tuchel - We did more than enough to beat Man Utd.

‘Reece James, Jorginho, and Timo Werner we will have to wait and then decide on. They all finished training with us today but there will be some last-minute decisions on those players for sure.’

When quizzed about how he’ll cope with the busy period during the festive season, Tuchel replied: ‘It will be challenging but it has been challenging before. We won't change our routine.

‘We have a tight communication with the medical and fitness department and we tried to predict the load, look at who is overloaded and underloaded, and from there we see what we will need in the next game.

‘As you know, we take it step by step. If you look too far ahead you will see tough weeks coming. That is why we focus on the details, the next game, maybe on the next two games where we can rely on our predictions because we have fantastic support from everybody.

‘It's on the players to be strong in the games but to take recovery very seriously. We have to be very good in recovery and sleeping, taking the right food and supplements to help us recover.

‘Our style is intense and needs to be to have a certain mentality and identity on the pitch. This is what we want. We are not scared to rotate and we will use the whole squad.’

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