Chelsea midfielder N’Golo Kante has been ruled out of Chelsea’s match against Crystal Palace on Tuesday after he suffered a hamstring injury during the 3-0 victory over Watford.
Chelsea won comfortably against the Hornets at the Bridge on Saturday, but suffered a huge blow when Kante was forced off the field with just 12 minutes left in the game.
The France international underwent a scan on Sunday, and Chelsea boss Frank Lampard concedes he could be without Kante for their games against Palace and Sheffield United.
“Kante won’t be in the squad – low-level hamstring injury. We’re hoping for a week or so [recovery time],” said Lampard ahead of the match against Palace.
Lampard refused to confirm whether Kante’s absence against Crystal Palace would lead to a recall for Jorginho, who is yet to play any game since football returned last month.
While Lampard heaped praise on Jorginho for his attitude, he said: “I don’t want to go into personal details, or positional and tactical details of why I pick the team.
“I just have to pick the team as I see best. They’re just my choices.
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“He’s been very professional about it. He wants to play, as every player does. One of the hardest parts of the job is telling a player they’re not playing, particularly when they train well – and Jorginho always trains well.
“It’s important players, during the course of a long season, are there to support players when they’re out – and he’s done that.”
Lampard also spoke about Pulisic’s recent improvement and says the winger is more direct when compared to Eden Hazard.
The blues boss said: “Having played with Eden and seen him come to the club at a relatively young age – similar to Christian – we saw the development of him.
“He had a special talent straight away, of being able to receive a ball, have great balance and go past players so well. He would draw a lot of players towards him to open up space for others – he was pretty unselfish in how he would make assists.
“Christian is possibly more direct, in terms of how he goes past players and runs off the ball – which I like. Eden would come and get the ball and take it past players a lot. With Christian, he has real ability to break a line and run forward, which is a really great trait in the modern game.
“The thing I’m so happy with now is that when we’re finding it hard to break teams down, he’s taking responsibility to change that by using his ability to turn quickly and go past people.
“It’s been great to see and there’s a lot of development still to come with Christian. I’m very happy with him.”
