Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has revealed Kai Havertz broke his finger in the process of scoring his side's opening goal in the 2-0 victory over Tottenham on Wednesday night.
The Germany international opened the scoring after just five minutes of the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg at Stamford Bridge, latching onto Marcos Alonso's pass and seeing his goal-bound effort cannon into the roof of the net off Davinson Sanchez
The goal came at a cost though, with Havertz's momentum sending him sprawling over the top of the committed Hugo Lloris and awkwardly into the floored Sanchez.
Once Chelsea's celebrations had dissipated the forward received lengthy treatment at the side of the pitch before eventually coming back on with bandaging on his fingers. However, Tuchel opted to replace him with his compatriot Timo Werner at half-time.
Explaining his decision after the match, Tuchel said: "Kai has a problem with his finger, I think he broke his finger.
"It was horrible and he played through the pain, but the pain was getting bigger and bigger with every movement, with every touch from the opponent. He survived until half-time and then we needed to change."
Havertz shared images on his Instagram story following the match that appeared to show he had broken the little finger on his right hand.
Club captain Cesar Azpilicueta was also forced off in the second half, but Tuchel allayed any fears that that was due to any serious injury.
"Azpi [Azpilicueta] says his was only cramp and not an injury, which would be the good news. We trust him from here so hopefully it is only cramp," he said.
Chelsea will hope Havertz can play through the pain with the squad still depleted through injuries and Covid-19. It was revealed before the Spurs match that both N'Golo Kante and Thiago Silva had tested positive for the virus, while Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah are out with respective hamstring injuries and Ben Chilwell has just had surgery on his damaged ACL.
There was some good news as Werner returned from his own bout of coronavirus, while Ruben Loftus-Cheek came off the bench following three weeks out with an injury and positive test.
For more from Krishan Davis, follow him on Twitter.
Source : 90min