Aubameyang completed a £10m move to Chelsea on deadline day and was expected to be unavailable for several weeks. But Tuchel confirmed on Monday that the 33-year-old is a candidate for the bench against Dynamo. “If there’s a problem today we won’t put him on, but there was no problem for him yesterday,” the Chelsea manager said. “Is he ready to go? I think he can’t play 90 minutes, so we have to manage the decision.” Asked if Aubameyang was ready to become Chelsea’s new hero despite being handed the ‘cursed’ No 9 shirt, Tuchel – who coached him for two years at Borussia Dortmund between 2015 and 2017 – added: ” Don’t put any more ideas in Auba’s head. please. When he scores, he can celebrate. He is hungry to play for us, we felt that from the first moment, and he needs to prove something.” Mateo Kovacic, who started his career at Dinamo before moving to Internazionale, also welcomed Aubameyang’s arrival. “He will be a goalscorer that we have missed – we haven’t had a goalscorer who scores the 20-25 goals per season that you need to win the title,” Kovacic said. “It’s normal for him to score goals and I hope he does it here.” Thiago Silva has not traveled with the Chelsea squad after Tuchel decided to rest the veteran Brazil defender, but Denis Zacharia could also get his first appearance since joining on loan from Juventus on deadline day deadline. Tuchel admitted he was wary of the threat posed by Dynamo, who thrashed Tottenham 3-0 to knock them out of the last 16 of the Europa League in 2021. “They will use their role as underdogs to try and overcome and make us perform less. ,” he said. “We know that and we are ourselves at a time when we have to improve. We have to take the next step and it’s the Champions League and it’s very exciting. Start your evenings with the Guardian’s view of the world of football Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “We know the challenge of playing a first game away from home. I think it’s important to accept that and play a humble game. We accept the struggle and accept the challenge. But we must perform for sure.”
