The Blues kick-off the new season with a short trip along the Thames to take on London neighbours Fulham at Craven Cottage on Monday evening. That game starts at 8pm and will be shown live on Sky Sports.

Alonso sat down with the media on Thursday at Cobham, where he explained that Danny Welbeck should be fit to feature while the players who returned to pre-season late due to the World Cup are all available.

‘Danny can be involved, he just needed a couple of days not training that much because of a little thing,’ the Spaniard explained at his media briefing.

‘We expect him to be back [training] on Saturday. We need to go day by day, but that is the plan at the moment.

‘With the other players, let’s see. We will check and assess them, but for sure because of the World Cup they came back a little bit later and will need a little more time.

‘But they are all available and can be selected in the line-up against Fulham, for sure.’