Reece James hurt his knee the day before the Bournemouth win, and Chelsea go to unbeaten Everton without their captain
Chelsea’s captain has had minor knee surgery and is expected to miss around three months, and his absence continues with a trip to a David Moyes side that has not lost in the league.
Oct 17, 2026
Reece James hurt his knee in training on 9 October, the day before Chelsea beat Bournemouth 5-1 at Stamford Bridge. A week later the club confirmed he has had minor surgery on it, and the captain is now looking at a long spell out. Chelsea go to Everton today without him.
Xabi Alonso would not put a number on it. “We don’t set timelines, but he will be out for several weeks,” he said at his press conference on Friday. He made it clear that “several” means more than a couple: “It’s not going to be short, it’s not going to be two, three weeks things.” Sky Sports reports the expected absence at around three months.
A captain without the armband
Three months would keep him out into January. After today, the next game without him is Tottenham at Stamford Bridge next Saturday.
It is not his first absence of the season, either. He missed September’s 3-0 defeat at Brentford with what Alonso called “a little injury in his hamstring”, after trying and failing to make it on the morning of the game.
Alonso was not worried about James losing his voice in the dressing room. “You can be captain without an armband, for me that’s not a problem for sure,” he said, and he added that James would stay close to the team because “he is a great influence even when he is not available.”
Asked whether the injury changes Chelsea’s plans for January, Alonso said he did not think so.
Everton have not lost yet
Today’s game kicks off at 12:30pm in Liverpool, 5pm IST, at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, and it is a proper test. David Moyes’s team have two wins and four draws from six, and they sit fifth on 10 points, level with Chelsea in sixth and one better off on goal difference.
Their last game was the frustrating kind of draw. They led 2-1 at Hull last weekend and came away with 2-2, and Moyes said afterwards that very few of his players had performed.
Chelsea come in having put five past Bournemouth, with João Pedro and Jordan Henderson scoring two each, and Moisés Caicedo back for his first start of the season after a calf problem. They have 15 goals from six games. The problem is at the other end, where they have conceded 13, against Everton’s five. They also lost 3-0 on their last league visit to Everton, in March.
Alonso has two more absentees on top of James. Emmanuel Emegha, still waiting for his Chelsea debut, felt something in training on Thursday and is not fit, and Jamie Gittens is out after getting hurt on England Under-21 duty.