Sarri: Hazard, Moses out tomorrow’s UEL

Maurizio Sarri has reported that neither Eden Hazard nor Victor Moses will be able to take part in tomorrow’s Europa League match against PAOK at the Bridge but he hopes to have the Belgian back for the visit from neighbours Fulham for the next Premier League game.

Speaking this afternoon at his media conference at Cobham, Sarri revealed Hazard is still affected by a minor ankle injury suffered in the Spurs game while apart from Moses, no other injury concerns were reported.

“Hazard is not a serious injury but he will not be able to play tomorrow,” Sarri said. “I think we will be able to recover him for the game on Sunday. I spoke with the doctor 10 minutes ago and he told me Moses has a back problem this morning so I think he will not be able to play tomorrow.

ALSO READ: Sarri undermining Kante ―Carragher

“Hazard 25 days ago had a back injury and now the ankle and so he has lost a lot of training, so it is normal he is not at the top of his physical condition. He will need another week of training and a couple of matches to be in the best physical condition.”

The visit of PAOK comes in the wake of Chelsea first defeat since the Premier League season began, against Spurs at Wembley, so there will be plenty of eyes on how Chelsea respond with two home games coming in quick succession.

“We played very badly [against Spurs], a match without determination,” Sarri told the reporters at the conference, “but we lost a match after 110 days I think, so the team did well generally but we have to understand why we played this game without determination. It is not normal.

ALSO READ:  Chelsea fans name Kepa worst keeper

“Tomorrow is an important match because we want to see a reaction, but I also want to see a reaction in the next Premier League match and see that we have learnt our lesson.

“I think I will make big changes to the side for tomorrow because in December we have to play 10 matches so now we need to change, regardless of the last result. In the Europa League group we had two targets, first was qualification which is achieved, the other one is to win our group so for this we need one point but we cannot think to play for one point or it is very easy to lose the match. So the target tomorrow is to win the match and be the first in our group, but of course we can also do this if we change seven or eight players.”