Chelsea will have to do without midfielder Mateo Kovacic until after the upcoming international break as manager Thomas Tuchel has confirmed he picked up a hamstring injury.
The Blues are already without strikers Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner, but their preparations for Saturday's meeting with Newcastle were given a huge boost by the news that Christian Pulisic, Andreas Christensen, N'Golo Kante and Cesar Azpilicueta were all back in training in Thursday.
Tuchel was so caught up in the positivity that, when asked in his pre-match press conference to give an injury update, he actually forgot to mention Kovacic completely, only to reveal the problem late on.
"Now that you've reminded me, we had sad news yesterday as he injured himself in the last minute of the training session," Tuchel said. "He suffers from a hamstring injury and will be out for some weeks.
"He'll be out for next week for sure, and then comes the international break, so it's a minimum of these weeks. Hopefully, after the break, he can be back."
