Reece James didn’t even make the bench for Chelea’s embarrassing 1-0 defeat to Southampton at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

Chelsea boss Graham Potter suggested after the game that he wanted to give the full-back some rest after he featured in back-to-back matches against West Ham and Borussia Dortmund within the space of just four days.

Speaking to reporters after the game against Southampton, Potter said: “With the others, there were no injuries, it was more just the turnaround of the games and the demand of the games, considering a few of them have had injuries previously.

“Certainly with Reece, he’d had two 90 minutes, which is more than we expected at the start of the week. So it was just a case of managing the load and managing the squad.”

Following the defeat to Southampton, Chelsea are now winless in our last five matches in all competitions and have won just twice in our last 10 Premier League encounters.