Tammy Abraham appears to suffer injury in post-match cooldown

You say warmdown, I say cooldown, but either way, in the context of this story we’re talking about the bit of post-match light exercise usually conducted by the non-starting players for a team. It’s standard procedure.

One of those taking part in the cooldown last night was Tammy Abraham, who came on for Olivier Giroud around the hour-mark of what eventually turned into a brutal 3-0 home defeat to Bayern Munich, all but eliminating Chelsea from the Champions League.

Adding the literal injury to that insult is apparently Abraham, who could not complete the session and limped off the pitch shaking his head in full view of the gathered journalists.

The Mail’s story claims that Abraham appeared to be favoring his hamstring, though he’s also been battling an ankle injury for several weeks now that seems to be not going away very quickly at all.

Frank Lampard was asked about this in his post-match press conference, but as he was not conducting the cooldown session (usually delegated to one of the other coaches), he could neither confirm nor deny. Either way, it’s probably not good.

Chelsea were already missing N’Golo Kanté, Christian Pulisic, and Callum Hudson-Odoi, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Abraham himself far from 100 per cent as well.

If Abraham, whose form has dropped noticeably (just 4 goals in the last 3 months and none since January 11), is forced to miss any time, Olivier Giroud will have to continue his recent revival (which would require tactical adjustments) or Michy Batshuayi will have to step up (which would require a minor miracle).

Not exactly a promising situation...