Chelsea planning scaled-down USA trip this summer after ‘worst pre-season ever’ under Thomas Tuchel

Chelsea are in talks to organise a pre-season training camp in ­Philadelphia that will allow the players to avoid the gruelling travel schedule they faced last summer.

Another United States tour has been confirmed by director of football operations Dave Barnard in a rare interview on the London is Blue podcast.

The club are further understood to be planning to use their Philadelphia, Pennsylvania base to stick to just the east coast throughout the trip.

Although not yet official, the Blues are set to face Wrexham, the side co-owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on July 19.

The National League leaders, whose owners secured the lucrative friendly through a hit Disney+ series, go on to face Manchester United in San Diego, California.

Several other fixtures will be slotted in after that to build up to the Premier League season that kicks off on August 12.

The players were exhausted by last season’s pre-season tour that culminated in a 4-0 loss to Arsenal in Florida. They travelled from coast to coast across all six US time zones — starting with a training camp in Los Angeles and ending with one in humid Orlando — during two weeks in searing temperatures.

Before defeat by Arsenal, the Blues lost on penalties to Charlotte FC, which the MLS side describe as the biggest upset in their short history, and beat Club America in their opening match in Las Vegas.

Former head coach Thomas Tuchel complained he would have preferred an “old school pre-season in Austria” before being sacked after it contributed to a slow start to the season. Tuchel’s successor, Graham Potter, said his players described it as the “worst pre-season ever” after he sought explanations for their poor form this season.

Barnard said: “One thing is from a football perspective. We have to ensure that preparation for the Premier League is first then we bolt on all our commercial activity and everything around it to generate the name of Chelsea. We try to find the best training facilities and the NFL teams have the best facilities.”

It raises the prospect of a link-up with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles at the NovaCare Complex. The Blues would be just two to three hours away from the key markets of New York, Washington DC and Baltimore.