Chelsea boss Frank Lampard endured a miserable night on Monday as his side suffered a 2-0 defeat at home to Man Utd.
The gap between the Blues and the chasing pack is now down to just one point, with Chelsea facing nearest rivals Tottenham this weekend in what will now be a crunch encounter.
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While decisions went against them and the result was a disaster as United are now just three points adrift with 12 games to go, the pressure is certainly building on Lampard and his players to arrest their slump in form and get back on track to secure Champions League qualification.
However, things are seemingly set to get worse as the Chelsea boss offered an update on midfielder N’Golo Kante in his post-match press conference, with the French international being forced off after just 11 minutes in an early setback for the hosts.
As seen in the tweet below from the club’s official Twitter account, Lampard conceded that Kante’s injury ‘doesn’t look great’, and that it was an adductor problem which ensured that he had to come off.
With that in mind, it’s an injury that Chelsea will have to be cautious with as they will not want to aggravate it further and see it result in a lengthier spell on the sidelines with Kante remaining a pivotal figure in their side.
Based on the early indications though following Lampard’s initial comments, it sounds as though the Chelsea star may well be set to miss some playing time as doubts will now hang over his involvement against Spurs on Saturday.
Further, the timing couldn’t be any worse as the Blues host Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie next Tuesday night, and so it remains to be seen if Kante will be involved in either of those two games.
Frank reports on the injury that forced Kante off early on. ‘It’s an adductor injury. We’ll have to assess it but it doesn’t look great.’#CHEMUN
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 17, 2020