Reece James and Benoit Badiashile made their return to the Chelsea side in their win over Blackburn Rovers in midweek

Chelsea captain Reece James has sent a message to defender Benoit Badiashile as the pair made a return to the starting lineup in Wednesday’s victory over Blackburn Rovers in the Carabao Cup. The pair have been amongst a whole host of injury concerns so far this season.

At times the Blues have had nearly a full team’s worth of players missing as new boss Mauricio Pochettino embeds his training philosophy. The manager went into detail surrounding the fitness situation and launched a defence of his medical staff after some criticism.

“Before we arrived here we did everything to try and have a clear idea of why there were too many injuries last season also, to analyse the risk,” Pochettino said in September. “It’s the profile of the player, the risk of the player. It’s not the people working in the medical staff of performance area.

“I think we need to respect these areas are very good professionals, qualified people. That’s why they are working in football. But there’s an individual risk to players, you need to assess. Then there’s bad luck. We have injuries that maybe happen in one season or maybe in two, but have happened because of different situations you cannot control.”

While it seems as though for every return there have been a few absences, Pochettino was handed a boost in midweek with the Carabao Cup tie against Championship opposition Blackburn. The match gave him a chance to give some minutes to those returning from a spell on the sidelines.

Captain James was one of those, having suffered a hamstring issue that kept him out of action for roughly three months, building up his minutes played before being thrown back into the team. He was also joined by Badiashile in the backline, having missed the latter part of last season and the start of this campaign.

The defender even found the scoresheet on his return, opening the scoring in the tie that eventually ended in a 2-0 victory, securing passage to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup. James sent a message to his teammate on social media with the caption “Welcome back” posted alongside a picture of the pair.

It remains to be seen whether they will both feature against Tottenham in their next Premier League clash, but many will be hoping that those injury concerns are starting to ease up.