How James Chester Prepared for Hull, While in Tony Xia’s Homeland

Aston Villa’s Mr Consistent, James Chester has been keeping weird hours while he was on international duty in China for Wales.

Chinese Late Nights

As MOMS previously reported, Chester, along with Birkir Bjarnason (in the USA), had the more demanding international breaks of all of Villa’s players.

To counter returning from the eight-hour time difference in China, the Welsh players prepared for getting back to club duty this weekend by having very late nights and keeping to a four-hour time difference to lessen the transition.

“It’s been a bit strange staying up till half three, four in the morning, and having your breakfast at one,” Chester told Sky Sports.

“But it was for that reason, to make sure when we get home it’s not as difficult to get back to normal life.”

With the discipline needed to be a professional footballer nowadays, Chester admits the late nights have been a bit of a change of scene for him.

“It was a very long time ago when I last stayed up that late, and it certainly won’t be a regular thing.

“It has been strange but it will make it a lot easier getting back – and some of us have got massive games coming up.”

Villa obviously have a must-win trip to Hull late on Saturday, if they want to keep their faint hope of automatic promotion alive.

Chester arrived back home on Tuesday, after playing in Wales 1-0 loss to Uruguay in the China Cup final (Wales had previously beaten China 6-0 in the first game).

USA Losses

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Villa’s other long haul player Bjarnason finished his last game in the USA for Iceland in the early hours of Wednesday morning UK time, losing 3-1 to Peru.

Bjarnason played 77 minutes and picked up a yellow card, after playing most of the game in the earlier 3-0 defeat against Mexico.

If the Icelandic midfielder does feature at all in the matchday squad against Hull City, it will not doubt be from the bench, due to the lack of time for him to adjust to the time zone.

UTV

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