The degree of Carney Chukwuemeka’s injury against West Ham United, according to Mauricio Pochettino, won’t be known until he is evaluated tomorrow.
Chukwuemeka, a 19-year-old who started at the London Stadium, equalized the score in the 28th minute with a skillfully executed goal. He moved the ball past Tomas Soucek in the penalty area and sent the ball into the far corner.
The goal was commensurate with Chukwuemeka’s first-half effort. He had to be replaced, though, when he fell to the ground holding his knee immediately before the break. Concern arose from the midfielder’s inability to exit the field independently.
‘We need to assess him tomorrow,’ said Pochettino after our disappointing 3-1 defeat. ‘There will be an assessment tomorrow with the doctor. We hope it’s not a big issue, but we need to wait.’
At the intermission, Chukwuemeka was replaced by Mykhailo Mudryk, and Pochettino changed the formation of his team. Despite the fact that Chelsea had most of the second period under control, the choice wasn’t successful.
‘We changed Carney for Mudryk, but we started the second half late and then we conceded the second goal. That helped West Ham to really believe in the result.
‘For us, we rushed situations. We need to be patient and open better the pitch. But when we see the data, in the last third, we had 50 entrances which is amazing. But we weren’t clinical enough to score, for different reasons.’