Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel admits he's worried about his players ahead of international week.

A number of Chelsea players will now head off on international duty, which includes recent injury returnees Christian Pulisic and N'Golo Kante, and the Bavarian has confirmed that having no control of the work of his players during this break does leave him "frightened".

"Of course both," Tuchel explained when asked if he was pleased or worried about players heading away with their nations.

"We are happy on one side for players to get minutes with their nations. They are proud to represent their countries, they are the best players to be nominated to play and I totally understand the emotion that comes with that

"On the other side, we would love to rest certain players and keep them with us at Cobham rather than going away with their countries so we can work with them.

"We would like to use the break to give the players a few days off, to disconnect and relax before returning again after a short period ready to work hard.

"The guys who are returning from injury, we would like to take care of them but sometimes it is like this and if they can go away with their nations and get some minutes, then maybe this is good.

"We take into consideration where players will travel to and how much they will play when we plan out the schedules. This is definitely the case with players such as N'Golo and Christian.

"In the past few weeks, they've more or less just been with us every day working on returning to fitness but they are free to go away with their national teams and hopefully they will get the minutes to elevate them onto a higher level when they come back.

"It's a careful balance because while we hope that happens, we are also hoping that they do not get injured. Not just for N'Golo and Christian, but all our international players. We have no control over it so yes, I'm always a little frightened of players going away."