Chelsea supervisor Emma Hayes believes the worry about the COVID-19 outbreak in England "played a main part" because the Blues crashed out inside the Women's Champions League group tiers on Thursday night time.
Hayes' facet reached the very last of the opposition closing season and were top in their organization heading into the very last round of video games, with Wolfsburg needing to beat them by means of clean goals to qualify as an alternative.
The German aspect ran out four-zero winners ultimately and after the sport, the Chelsea boss went into element about the effect the latest surge in COVID instances has had on her group, with two gamers ruled out for this game due to high-quality checks.
Speaking in her postmatch press conference, Hayes stated: "First of all, congratulations to Wolfsburg. They deserved to undergo. I assume it's important for me to say.
"I'm no longer making excuses for the gamers, but I can inform you that the last 3 days were all around the region with the concern that we should play this recreation. While fixture congestion is a component, COVID is real and when you're in a group environment, you already know that it spreads like wildfire in a team.
"I'm gutted. I'm gutted for the players, due to the fact we all understand that become nowhere near a team that represents my crew. I've were given players being ill in there, they've got diarrhea, they're exhausted, and perhaps a number of that intellectual tension performs a component in it.
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"But I just experience like this become deja vu and we are right here again three hundred and sixty five days on after a certainly, sincerely bad COVID outbreak at exactly the equal time last yr. I think that performed a major element in our overall performance this night."
Asked if she feels there ought to be a pause within the season, Hayes spoke back: "I'm certainly now not at the fence. We do no longer receives a commission tens of millions of pounds. I want my gamers to go and spot their households.
"Unfortunately, we couldn't separate that tension from the overall performance. I didn't understand my gamers tonight. I notion we have been all around the region. If we land day after today, take our PCR test and we have a mass outbreak with COVID then, what do you want me to mention?
