Chelsea ditch summer tour to avoid post World Cup burn-out as rivals head to the USA

Club bid to keep international stars fresh
Simon Johnson13 March 2014

Chelsea will not go on a lucrative tour this summer to ensure their squad avoid burn-out next season.

In the last three years the Blues have been to the United States and Asia but Standard Sport understands that with a shorter close season due to the World Cup they have decided to play a series of one-off games in Europe instead.

Trips to North America and South East Asia have been financially rewarding and given Chelsea a great opportunity to increase their global fanbase.

Last year Chelsea went to both continents, playing seven matches and covering more than 23,000 miles.

But with the majority of their squad involved in the World Cup in Brazil, which will also delay holidays and the date players report back for training, a lighter schedule is being planned.

They did the same thing after the World Cup in 2010, with games against Crystal Palace, Ajax, Frankfurt and Hamburg before they played Manchester United in the Community Shield.

An announcement on Chelsea’s pre-season is expected later this month but with the club leading the Premier League by seven points, there is a possibility they will be involved in the annual encounter at Wembley again.

Chelsea will hope that by staying in Europe they can gain an advantage over their rivals who are still going on tours this summer. Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool are all competing in the International Champions Cup in the United States, which Chelsea played in last summer.

Tottenham are also off to the States in July to play friendlies against Seattle Sounders and Chicago Fire. Arsenal have yet to announce their pre-season plans.

Meanwhile, Marco van Ginkel still faces missing out on the World Cup despite recovering from a knee ligament injury.

The Holland midfielder, who joined from Vitesse Arnhem for £9million last summer, recently returned to full training after being injured against Swindon in the League Cup in September.

Van Ginkel is desperate to resume his Chelsea career and to prove his fitness in order to earn a spot in Holland’s squad. He already has two caps and hoped the move to Stamford Bridge would enhance his chances of playing in Brazil.

However, with Chelsea involved in a tight title race and the nature of his knee problem having been so severe, it is unlikely he will be risked.

Assistant manager Steve Holland said: “The injury he had was a nasty one, an injury that 15-20 years ago finished your career. These days, with the advancements made medically, that’s not the case and you return almost as good as you were previously.

Chelsea's summer transfer targets

1/7

“He is well ahead of schedule, that’s the way players think and it is a World Cup year. From our point of view it would be nice to take the pressure off and say, ‘there is no rush, you’ve done fantastically well and are an important player for the future so let’s go step by step’.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in