Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Petr Cech could make early return

Chelsea delighted a major boost today ahead of Saturday's English Premier League travel to Sunderland when Cech returned to full training.

The goalkeeper had been ruled out for between 3 and 4 weeks after damaging knee ligaments in a training-ground collision last month, but has made a quicker-than-expected recovery.

Understudy Hilario has failed to keep a clean sheet in the 29-year-old's absence, producing a frightful error to gift Norwich an equaliser in Chelsea's 3-1 win ten days ago.

That mistake against Norwich capped an erratic display from Hilario, and manager Andre Villas-Boas revealed after that game that Cech "might" be available for the Sunderland match.

Providing the latter doesn't suffer a setback, a recall now looks sealed, although Villas-Boas insisted that wouldn't mean he had lost trust in Hilario or Turnbull.

"Hilario, Ross and Petr have been terrific throughout all of pre-season and the beginning of the season, so I've trust in all of the 3," Villas-Boas said.

New signing Raul Meireles, who trained for the 2nd time with Chelsea today after coming back from international duty could make his debut at the Stadium of Light.

David Luiz also appears set to be available after dropping the start of the season with a thigh injury. The defender trained today after returning from international duty, during which he was an unused substitute in Brazil's 1-0 win over Ghana