The time has come for Reece James to prove he can stay fit: to his club, his country and most of all himself.
News of his return to first-team training at Chelsea on Monday following a pre-season hamstring injury was understandably celebrated by many of their fans on social media. He is the club captain and one of their best players. Coach Enzo Maresca’s squad is far stronger with him in it.
But his extraordinary run of injuries over the past few years is threatening to turn the 24-year-old full-back’s career into a story of ‘What if?’ story. Supporters often post clips of his best moments, but the sample size is a lot smaller than anyone connected to him or the club want it to be.
Just looking at some of the numbers tells an unsatisfying tale.
For example, when Chelsea return to action against Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday, it will be 562 days since James last managed to play a full 90 minutes in the Premier League.
Since breaking into Chelsea’s senior squad in the 2019-20 season, James’s best run of completing successive matches stands at six and that was achieved in May 2021.
From the beginning of 2022-23, he has been in Chelsea’s league starting XI just 19 times. The most starts James has managed in a season in England’s top division is 25 in 2020-21, and on only one other occasion has he managed as many as 20. He was on the pitch for the club for just 482 minutes in all competitions last season.
Transfermarkt data tells us he has been ruled out 18 times through injury (plus once through illness) over the past five years. Eight of those absences have been due to hamstring issues, which includes the reason for his longest single absence, 151 days between December and May last season, after having surgery to try to correct it.
Inevitably, this has had a damaging impact on his England ambitions too. The most recent of his 16 caps was against Italy in March last year, when he came on as a late substitute. He has not started for England since the September 2022 3-3 draw with Germany.
His absence from England squads is not much of a talking point anymore. On top of the usual options at right-back in Kyle Walker and Trent Alexander-Arnold, the national team now have youngsters such as Rico Lewis and Tino Livramento to choose from.
However, the imminent appointment of former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, who he won the Champions League under three years ago, as England head coach should renew optimism of a recall in the future.
With each setback James suffers, it seems like the news is met with increasing exasperation from sections of the Chelsea fanbase and diminishing sympathy. But nobody is more frustrated with what has been going on than the player himself.
At the beginning of the club’s pre-season tour to America in July, he was asked in a press conference what his main target for 2024-25 was, particularly if he wanted more goals or assists. He replied: “I have one goal. My goal is to stay on the pitch.”
Things were looking promising on that trip. He started all five games, with Maresca bringing him off each time to manage his workload. But the final substitution, after 70 minutes against Real Madrid in Charlotte, North Carolina, came just too late, as that is when he felt discomfort in his hamstring again. It was not regarded as too serious and Chelsea always intended to not rush the recovery. But the hope was for him to return after the first international break of the season last month (he was going to miss the first three league games through suspension anyway after getting sent off against Brighton in May) — certainly not wait as long as after the second.
One would expect the best James can hope for on Sunday is a place on the bench. Maresca will surely want to ease him back into action slowly. The game could be a source of angst for him regardless, with the sight of England rival Alexander-Arnold playing for the opposition.
The duo’s qualities are often compared. Heated debates often take place between Chelsea and Liverpool fans on X over which right-back, both graduates from their respective clubs’ academies, is the better player. The exchange of views was given fresh impetus this past Sunday when Alexander-Arnold, who is the eldest by 14 months, scored a beautiful free-kick for England in their 3-1 away win against Finland.
Alexander-Arnold has experienced his own disappointments with England but has almost twice the senior caps James does (31 to 16).
Their club careers show a similar disparity. James has made 158 appearances for Chelsea (119 of them starts), Alexander-Arnold has 319 for Liverpool (including 290 starts). Put it this way: if you were a club thinking about signing one of them, you would favour Alexander-Arnold because you can have more trust in his availability to play.
Before signing a six-year contract worth up to £250,000 ($327,000) per week in September 2022, James had Real Madrid among his admirers. Now the talk is about the La Liga club making a move for Alexander-Arnold.
The fact that Alexander-Arnold is on course to be out of contract at Liverpool next summer and will be able to open talks with, say, Madrid over a free-agent transfer from the start of January is part of the appeal. If anyone wants to sign James, who was the subject of significant interest from another major European club in the summer, they will have to pay Chelsea a significant fee, despite his injury woes.
But if the time left on their respective contracts were the same, you suspect Alexander-Arnold would still be favoured more because of the huge difference in their appearance records.
Chelsea made a big statement and commitment by getting James to sign that new deal up to summer 2028. He has started just 14 Premier League games for them since pen met paper and while that’s not his fault, it does not constitute value for money so far.
James will be all too aware that by demoting two of their highest-earners — Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell — to the ‘bomb squad’ in the summer, Chelsea have already shown they are not afraid to make big decisions over high-profile players if they decide their futures lie elsewhere. Sterling ended up joining Arsenal on loan for the rest of this season but Chilwell — a player who has had injury struggles of his own — is still at the club after failing to get a transfer. He is facing the prospect of being a bit-part player until the window reopens in the new year.
Speaking in July, James talked about how he could not “wait to get playing and find my rhythm again”. The sooner he begins doing that consistently, the better.
(Top photo: Jeff Dean/Getty Images)
