Mauricio Pochettino drops transfer hint immediately after Preston FA Cup

Chelsea manager is not ruling out freshening up the Chelsea squad for the second half of the season but says he will hold a meeting with the owners and sporting directors before deciding the next step.

LondonWorld sources say the Chelsea boss would be interested in bringing in another striker and possibly another centre half this transfer window but any move will be dependent on whether they can sell some players too.

Conor Gallagher has been linked with a move to Tottenham while Ian Maatsen has suitors at Dortmund. Asked if he had thought of what to do in the winter transfer already, the Chelsea boss said: "We didn't talk about names. At the moment we are not talking about players.

"I saw Behdad, with Pual and Laurence. I think tomorrow we are going to have a chat. We didn't talk about names or players. For now, we are focusing on players like Andrey Santos."

Pochettino also confirmed Carney Chukwuemeka, Benoît Badiashile and Ben Chilwell were close to returning. He added: "We are so close with Chilwell, Badiashile, Carney but we need to see every day the evolution. Always the risk is really important and seeing how the players perform in the training session. All of the players when they go to the session feel they are ready. If you ask they say ' I know myself' but 99.9% they make a mistake. Our opinion is good to see if they are available or not."