Injured Chelsea duo Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner will miss clashes against Norwich City and Southampton at least, Thomas Tuchel has confirmed.
The attacking pair were both forced off in the first half of the Blues’ 4-0 victory over Malmo in the Champions League in midweek and now face spells on the sidelines.
Lukaku, who completed a £97.5million switch back to Stamford Bridge in the summer, twisted his ankle and had to be replaced by Kai Havertz after 23 minutes.
Shortly before half-time, Chelsea’s injury woes worsened when Werner suffered a problem with his hamstring and was also taken off.
Tuchel said after the match that the pair would be out for ‘some days’, but he has now offered a fresh update on their injuries, with both ruled out for the Premier League clash against Norwich on Saturday and the Carabao Cup meeting with Southampton on Tuesday, at a minimum.
The German boss told a press conference on Friday: ‘To make the question a longer one, how is Christian Pulisic too? They are all out tomorrow and probably the Southampton game and then we will see.
‘What I can tell you for sure is they are both [Lukaku and Werner] in treatment, positive and not worried, but out of the next two games for sure.
‘From there we see what is next, I don’t think it makes any sense to go into speculation about how long this is going to be.
‘The fact is you never know, things can be longer than expected, shorter than expected.’
On Lukaku specifically, he added: ‘Mentally he is a bit overplayed like other players in the squad, but that does not mean we have to rest them.
‘Jorginho and Mason Mount are in the same spot. It is like this, they have played a lot of competitions. This is what we felt with Romelu, so we encouraged him to trust his instincts, let us do the thinking and the structure that he will be able to have the last contact and this is what we did for the Malmo game.’
‘His body didn’t demand a break, it was not a muscle injury,’ Tuchel continued.
‘It is just some percentage, please don’t underestimate the effort these players go through. We want him to be the top dog at Chelsea and at some point, you get tired. If you turn the wheel and turn the wheel and turn the wheel then you get tired.
‘There is no major problem. Sometimes speaking about it helps.’
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