Chelsea
manager Frank Lampard has included Antonio Rudiger in his squad to face
Lille in the Champions League but has ruled Fikayo Tomori out of the match.
Tomori was an unused substitute in the 3-1 defeat to Everton on Saturday and
the England international will now miss Tuesday's match in France due to a
slight hip strain.
Chelsea need to win to guarantee their place in the last 16 of the
competition and Lampard has been handed a boost by Rudiger, who could make
his first appearance since September after recovering from a groin injury.
"He is in the squad, so there's a chance," said Lampard. "It's good to have
him back, he's been training really well.
"He's got a lot of his fitness work done since the injury healed.
"The other news I suppose is that Tomori is out. He's got a small tiny
strain around his hip area and it's been bothering him so I've taken him out
for a few days."
Rudiger missed the start of the season after having knee surgery and the
Germany international suffered a further setback in September when he
sustained a groin injury in his first match back against Wolves.
Lampard says the defender is desperate to return to first-team action after
a season disrupted by injury.
"He looks fit and ready to go," said Lampard. "I know he's hungry.
"In terms of people building him up, it's probably rightly so. Everybody
spoke about youth at the start of the season and transfer bans.
"The idea that we started the season with five big players all injured for a
period of time. Carrying on that now, Rudiger is just back and Ruben
[Loftus-Cheek] is a big player for us as well.
"You do miss those individuals, let's see what he can add for us now."
Chelsea had their transfer ban lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport
on Friday but Lampard insists he won't rush into making signings in the
January window.
"I think you've got to be careful with being too reactionary," he said. "Ban
lifted, defeat at Everton. It's quite easy to come to that conclusion I
suppose.
"Just as much as people were saying at the start of the season that we've
got all these young boys, this is going to be no problem we don't need any
players. At a club like Chelsea, it's a balance.
"You have a strong squad, which I believe we have, but you have to look at
whether we can strengthen.
"There will be times going forward, whether it's January or next summer, of
course we're going to look at the opportunity to strengthen because we want
to improve."
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