Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta was carried on stretches in Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat against Southampton at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
The Spanish international appeared to have suffered a head injury after Southampton forward Sekou Mara kicked him in the head in an attempt to clear the ball. The doctors on the pitch attended to the Chelsea captain before he was taken to the hospital.
Graham Potter has indicated that the Spanish international is conscious and doing really well in the hospital.
What did Graham Potter say concerning Cesar Azpilicueta’s injury?
“He’s in hospital, so he’s in the best place,” he said at a press conference after the game.
“He’s conscious, and he was speaking to his wife, so that’s good. We were obviously really concerned, especially when it first happened, but hopefully, he’s in the best place, and we’ll keep monitoring him.
“I think he was unconscious when it happened so we have to take all the precautions we need to take now and make sure he’s okay, but it was worrying. It was a horrible incident.”
The defeat against Southampton means Chelsea has won twice in their last 15 games in all competitions.
Reaction to Chelsea’s first-half performance Southampton, Graham Potter said: “I think it was, certainly in the first half, it was a below-par performance. Returning from the Champions League and we had to make some changes, so you lose a bit of fluidity and cohesion. Southampton set up with a plan, an idea. They mixed the game well with a big target man, but our performance wasn’t what we wanted in the first half, and I take as much responsibility as anybody in that.
“I thought the response second half was good and I thought we deserved a goal, we created enough chances to score. But when you don’t, then obviously it’s difficult to win matches.”
On his decision to replace David Dastro Fofana with Raheem Sterling in the second half, Graham Potter added: “To use Raheem [Sterling] really. We wanted to use Raheem in the wide areas and that was the decision. It was a tricky one for David – I thought he had one really good action – and it wasn’t a reflection on him. It was more tactical to use Raheem.”
Graham Potter made five changes to the team that lost 1-0 to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League round 16.
Asked whether Reece James, Thiago Silva, Marc Cucurella, Hakim Ziyech, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek were injured for the Southampton game, he said: “No injuries. More just the turnaround and demand of the games considering a few of them had injuries previously. With Reece, two 90s in a row, which is more than we expected at the start of the week. It was a case of managing the load and managing the squad.”
Chelsea’s next Premier League game is against Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday 26th, February.
