Chelsea boss Antonio Conte has confirmed he’s planning to hand youngster Kyle Scott his debut for the club after N’Golo Kante was ruled out for three weeks.
Kante sustained a hamstring injury on international duty with France and Chelsea are awaiting confirmation from a second scan over the severity of the issue.
In any case Chelsea expect him to be missing for at least three weeks and that leaves just Tiemoue Bakayoko and Cesc Fabregas as the club’s senior, fit central midfielders.
Scott, 19, is yet to feature for the club but Conte says he could play some part in the coming weeks.
‘This [Kante] is a big loss for us. You know very well the importance of Kante in our team and we don’t have another player with the same characteristics,’ said Conte.
‘For sure it’s not lucky for us in this period. In midfield we only have Bakayoko and Fabregas available.
‘We have to approach seven games in on month and for this reason in this period we have to find solutions and adapt some defenders in midfield or to give opportunities to young players like [Kyle] Scott to play from the start.’
Chelsea face Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Saturday and Conte could be forced to change his system given the club’s injury problems.
Alvaro Morata and Danny Drinkwater join Kante on the sidelines and David Luiz could be pushed into mid
