Chelsea will host relegation-battling Southampton at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon. Chelsea are heading into the game after their 1-0 defeat to Dortmund in the Champions League.
Sterling has missed Chelsea’s last two matches due to a knee injury, and Ben Chilwell featured in Chelsea’s loss against Borussia Dortmund but was substituted in the 60th minute.
Providing an update on the fitness of Ben Chilwell and Raheem Sterling at a press conference ahead of the Southampton game, he said: “It’s positive,’ said our head coach. We’re going to train later on this afternoon, so providing they come through that okay, there’s a good chance they’ll be in the squad.
“With Ben, the challenge for us at the moment is managing his return. He had 30 minutes against West Ham and 60 minutes against Dortmund, so the decision will be based on how he recovers today and how he reports.
“So we’ll make that call probably tonight or tomorrow, as to the extent that he can play, but it’s certainly something we have to be mindful of.”
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Chelsea was denied a penalty against West Ham United last weekend as West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek appeared to save Conor Gallagher’s shot with his hand.
Asked about VAR and what he would change about VAR given the opportunity, Graham Potter said: “I have no problem with VAR necessarily. I don’t think I would have had it in the first place because I think I’m a bit of a romantic, traditionalist. I quite like the referee and the linesman there to make the decision, and whatever mistake happens, happens. I think that’s a good way.
“I understand that we want to make all of the decisions correct. Then I go, do we really want every single decision to be correct? There’s an emelent of human error, there’s an element of that, that happens in the game that gives us something to talk about and get annoyed about. It’s part of the game.
“Or are we going towards, eventually, are humans going to make the decision? Because I hear people talking about the need to be consistent, and the only way to be consistent is that human beings don’t make the decision because they see it in a different way. The football action will be so different. This drive for consistency is strange when you consider that humans are taking part in the game.
“I would like the referee to mostly referee the game. Apart from that I will just try and support the process because that’s where it is. I don’t think it’s so easy to be a VAR ref, we’re still in the early stages of being a VAR ref. I think it must be different to go from being on the pitch, feeling the game to being in this room for example. This is something that inevitably they’re going to get better at I think. Apart from that, I have enough problems myself to worry about VAR.”
