Chelsea have fresh new injury concern; Graham Potter ‘full of praise’ for a player after win over RB Salzburg

Chelsea have fresh new injury concern in midfield after Salzburg win. As if Chelsea need any more injury issues right now, there is a potential new one on the cards.

The area where they need injuries the least is in midfield, an area in which we are already struggling in with a long-term injury to N’Golo Kante and some serious fatigue in there right now.

The Blues beat RB Salzburg last night to top their Champions League group and go through to the knockout stages.

Mateo Kovacic got the opening goal for Chelsea, in a rare occurrence for the Croatian international. He once again showed his importance to this team with a great performance.

However, he was forced off the pitch early and there were immediate concerns of an injury, further to the recent knee issues he has been facing.

Graham Potter has since confirmed that he felt something in his calf, a bit of tightness. Hopefully this is just a bit of fatigued muscle and nothing more.

Graham Potter says Kovacic came off tonight because he felt something in his calf. “There was a bit of tightness. Hopefully it is not too bad.” He didn’t sound too concerned.

Graham Potter was full of praise for Kai Havertz after he scored a stunning goal to help Chelsea beat RB Salzburg 2-1.

Havertz secured all three points with a sublime curling effort into the top left hand corner after he received the ball from Christian Pulisic on the edge of the box.

The winner secured qualification to the last 16 of the Champions League for Chelsea from Group E.

The German has now scored 26 times in 106 appearances since his £89m move from Bayer Leverkusen in 2020.

Having lost their Champions League opener to Dinamo Zagreb and drawn Graham Potter’s first game in charge against RB Salzburg, the Blues have beaten AC Milan twice and now Salzburg to ease through qualification.

Potter is also unbeaten in nine matches since moving to the club from Brighton last month.

Following the game the Blues boss was full of praise for Havertz and was delighted to have guided his side through the group with a game to spare.

‘It was an amazing finish, right in the top corner and it makes my job a lot easier when they can do that,’ Potter told BT Sport post-match.

‘It’s great for him and I’m really pleased because he has been fighting and trying his best and is nearly there to scoring more. Today he needed to score that to help us through. It’s fantastic.

‘I’m delighted (with the win). It was a fantastic performance from the players. They showed real courage here in an intense atmosphere with the way they put you under pressure and I thought we controlled it well and created some chances.

‘I was disappointed to only be one-nil up at half-time. There was one mistake and one action from them which can happen but we responded really well.

‘It was a great goal from Kai and overall we deserved to go through.’