Jamie Gittens was one player looking forward to international duty as a chance to maintain fitness through minutes on the pitch and force him into the reckoning for Chelsea.
His duty with the England under-21s has ended early and he has withdrawn from national selection after sustaining injury in the opening game of the European Championships qualifiers.
The circumstances of the injury is currently unclear, indicating further scans are required and could be a lengthy spell on the sidelines. According to the national manager, Lee Carsley, the winger got a kick on the ankle and was seen leaving the ground on crutches.
It's a cruel twist for a player who needed this break to go well, not badly. Gittens arrived at Chelsea with plenty of promise but has struggled to nail down consistent game time, stuck behind a crowded forward line and yet to fully convince Xabi Alonso he deserves an extended run. That is mainly due to the form of Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer playing in his position.
A productive spell with England's under-21s was supposed to be the platform to change that conversation. Instead, it's added another delay to a season that already felt like it was slipping away from him before it properly started.
The timing makes this worse than a routine knock. Chelsea's attacking options are stretched thin enough that minutes should, in theory, be there for the taking, and every week Gittens spends unavailable is a week a rival for his position gets to make the case for themselves instead, likely stronger in his case.
Fitness alone won't guarantee him a place in the side, but it's the bare minimum requirement, and right now even that keeps being taken away from him. A loan move in the winter or a swap deal could be his future course of action.
There's still time for Gittens to turn his season around, and nobody should be writing him off on potential alone. But moments like this compound quickly.
Every setback pushes his reintegration further back, and every week out is a week further from proving he belongs in Chelsea's plans rather than on the fringes of them. For a player who needed momentum more than anyone at the club right now, this is about as unhelpful as it gets.
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