Mauricio Pochettino, the manager of Chelsea, reports Ben Chillwell’s injury

Mauricio Pochettino claimed to have gotten “bad news” on the most recent setback suffered by Chelsea defender Ben Chilwell.

Chilwell received a scan on Thursday to evaluate the severity of the hamstring injury that prompted him to leave Chelsea’s midweek League Cup victory against Brighton in the dying minutes.

Chilwell’s injury “looks a bad injury,” according to Blues manager Pochettino, although he was unable to specify how long Chilwell will be out.

It is yet another blow for the England left-back, who only played 23 league games last season and missed the 2022 World Cup due to injury.

“Based on what the doctor told me, I believe the news is awful. Pochettino told reporters on Friday, “It is not a nice thing.

“It seems to be a serious injury, but we need to analyze it over the next several days to determine how long he will be off.

“In the last second of the game, the mechanism was terrible. The news about Ben makes us very sad.

It is tough to determine right now since there are still a few days until we need to make an assessment.

It was difficult to replace two players of such high caliber, Pochettino acknowledged, especially with England right-back Reece James also out.

Important players are missed when they don’t play at all teams, he said.

“If the inquiry is, ‘Do we miss them?’ No doubt. Both Reece and Chilwell are elite athletes. They are the world’s top full-backs when they are performing at their peak.

Malo Gusto and striker Nicolas Jackson’s bans may cause Pochettino to be without as much as 11 players for Monday’s west London derby against Fulham.

However, when questioned about Burnley manager Vincent Kompany’s suggestion that players be restricted in the amount of games they may play in order to prevent injury, Pochettino said that he wasn’t sure whether it was a practical notion.

Perhaps there are players who cannot handle playing in 70 games over the course of the season, but another guy can, according to Pochettino.

“Another athlete can only handle a small amount since the chance of suffering another injury is quite high.

“It’s hard to generalize. The players cannot be restricted in any way. Every game is desired by the participants. How can you refuse a top player that requests to play?