Chelsea boss, Thomas has said that he was ‘very sad’ to be without Mateo Kovacic for the 1-0 defeat against Porto in their Champions League quarter-final second leg tie on Tuesday.
Chelsea progressed to the semi-finals despite the defeat after the Croatian, who was set to start the match, pulled up at the end of training on Monday with a hamstring issue.
Kovacic, one of the most experienced Champions League stars in the Chelsea set up, will also miss this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final clash against Manchester City.
“Unfortunately yes I was very sad yesterday to see him after twenty minutes in training to have this little muscle injury more or less out of nothing,’ Tuchel told reporters.
“We played little boxes after training just to have a little sweat and he felt his hamstring. So he is for sure out of the game against City as well, which is a big loss.
“I was very sad for him because we don’t have so many experienced players that have played Champions League many times so if you see him when the anthem is playing and he stands there that he’s relaxed and he’s a hard fighter – everyone is happy to have him around. So we did it for him today.”
Chelsea will face either Real Madrid or Liverpool in the semi-finals with the La Liga giants already 3-1 up on aggregate going into the second leg of their quarter-final clash at Anfield.
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