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Di Matteo: Chelsea fit and ready to go
The Champions League-winning coach is delighted the club haven't brought back any injuries from their pre-season tour of America and is looking forward to the start of the campaign
Chelsea coach Roberto Di Matteo has stated that there are no injuries within his squad, and despite some disappointing reults on their American tour, he is looking forward to the start of a new season.The Blues defeated Seattle Sounders 4-2, but it was the only win of their tour, as they drew with Paris Saint-Germain and lost against the MLS All-Stars and AC Milan.
But Di Matteo is looking at the positives, in that none of his players came back carrying injuries despite a challenging schedule.
"I think this week has been a good week of training and settling down really, coming back to Cobham and getting rid of the jet lag," Di Matteo told the club's official website.
"It's been a week of hard work. It takes a few days of everybody to get over it, we all struggled at first but we have recovered well.
"The training facilities in America were very good, excellent.
"We moved around a lot though, especially in the second week, and integration of players coming back on different dates and trying to match them up with players who had a different fitness level, then the games, was a big challenge for everybody - the players and staff - but we are very pleased we came back without any injuries.
Di Matteo also stated that despite some disappointing results, the players still have opportunities to impress him in training and in their final pre-season friendly against Brighton this weekend before the Community Shield against Manchester City at Villa Park.
He added: "Results were a bit up and down and we were a little disappointed with the results, but we were pleased with what we did and we are looking forward to being ready on the first day.
"Every day in training is an opportunity, the friendlies are opportunities, and on Saturday I am looking forward to a good competitive game for us, and also to test a couple of things, and get some players with 90 minutes in their legs so that we can get the majority of players with that amount under their belt.
"That means there won't be as many substitutions as we have seen in the States."
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