Romelu Lukaku, Marcos Alonso back in Chelsea training!

As confirmed by the Chelsea official website, Romelu Lukaku and Marcos Alonso were two of the participants involved in this morning’s training session as the team (or at least those not busy with international duty) began preparations for next weekend’s return to football — and the start of the winter grind.

Alonso had missed our last game through a minor ankle injury he had picked up late on against Malmö the Tuesday before, though news of his return is somewhat secondary to Lukaku’s. Our record signing and still (joint-)leading goal-scorer has been out for the last month, since our previous match against Malmö. Fortunately we don’t have to play them again this season, so maybe we can stop picking up injuries (see also: Timo Werner, who’s not yet back).

While we have fared quite well in Lukaku’s absence, winning four of five while scoring thirteen times, ten of those came against the bottom two teams in the league. And if we’re looking for sustained success this season, we’ll need to get everyone fit and firing, starting with those who are supposed to be leading the line.

Our next game is on Saturday lunchtime, away to Leicester City. We’ve been relying on the non-internationals in these first games back from breaks, so those training today — including the likes of Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in addition to the headliners — will surely be heavily involved.