Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has confirmed Mateo Kovacic misses tonight’s clash with FC Porto through injury.
The Blues take on the Portuguese outfit this evening at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan in Seville looking to book their place in the Champions League semi-finals.
Chelsea took a commanding 2-0 lead in the first leg, meaning they just have to finish the job this evening, but they won’t be helped by a late injury blow.
Thomas Tuchel made three changes for the fixture, including bringing in N’Golo Kante for Kovacic in midfield, and he has confirmed that decision was made due to an injury, the same reason Andreas Christensen misses out at the back.
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“Yeah, we had an injury yesterday which was very sad yesterday in training, so Kova is out,” he told BT Sport.
“The same with Andreas Christensen, we did not manage to make him fully fit after his muscle injury from the first leg.
“So these are the two concerns, but we have Thiago (Silva) back in the squad. Not too many changes because we are on a good run, the team is confident and this is the moment to go.
“It got out of my hands, the decision was made during training yesterday when Kova got an injury. I would have loved to have the choice of N’Golo from the bench to make sure he can finish the game – it’s still possible. He feels very good, he’s absolutely recovered.”
Speaking about the clash with Porto, Tuchel added: “It’s nothing new for us. We’re used to playing tough matches in the league, so it’s another tough match coming.
“Like I said, there’s nothing more uninteresting than the last results, we had a win but it does not count today.
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“Everything that counts today is that we are totally on mentally, that we are well aware, that we trust ourselves in the principles in how we play, and we deliver a performance.
“We’ll see what result is at the end of it, but you cannot get distracted by results from last week.”
Chelsea’s starting XI in full: Mendy; James, Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Silva, Chilwell; Kante, Jorginho; Mount, Pulisic, Havertz.