Frank Lampard says Chelsea will welcome back Christian Pulisic for their trip to face Wolves on Tuesday evening after he came through his recent training sessions without pain.
Pulisic has had a series of injury problems since joining Chelsea and his hamstring tear in the FA Cup final defeat to Arsenal in August has led to further problems in the new season.
Previously, Pulisic’s latest setback was described as an ‘awareness’ of the hamstring which has caused him to sit out the last two matches.
As Lampard attempts to bounce back from a 1-0 defeat away at Everton on Saturday, he will welcome back Pulisic at Molineux.
“He trained on the day we played against Everton and he felt better so he is in the squad for tomorrow,” Lampard said in a press conference from Cobham Training Centre.
“It is yet to be decided whether he starts or not but it is positive news from where it was at the weekend.”
Chelsea’s loss on Merseyside ended a 17-game undefeated streak in all competitions but it left Lampard concerned as his side failed to hit the target in the second half when chasing the game.
That lack of creativity came with Timo Werner and Kai Havertz playing on the wings amid injuries to Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi.
Having already said he believes Havertz can play anywhere in the forward line, Lampard doesn’t believe he needs to abandon his primary formation to get more creativity out of his side.
“No, we’ve been playing really well,” Lampard added. “Hakim Ziyech has certainly been very pivotal and Callum, when he’s been playing, has done well and all of a sudden we are very short on wingers. But we have capabilities to still play.
“It wasn’t the formation that we didn’t get right at the weekend, it was the way we executed it, which we have players that can comfortably do that. So we just need to improve on the weekend.
“What we have to come to terms with, it felt like Everton played very similar to how Tottenham played against us a couple of weeks ago and if people are watching us of course, they will stop us from doing what we’ve been doing well. It’s on us to find other ways.
“We didn’t move the ball quickly enough as a team to hit the sides to maybe turn them around. So I think we just need to understand that, when teams make it difficult for us, we have to have ways to get around that. Our level dropped.
“If we’d been at our top level we would have found a way to get around that. I certainly accept this group of players going so long unbeaten that there is one game that feels like that. And we can’t really make any excuse of not having the wingers.
“It is unfortunate in the short term. I think we have players capable of playing in those areas so I don’t want to hang on that one. Hopefully, the wingers are all back soon anyway.”
