Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel appreciated the passion of Toni Rudiger after victory at Leeds.
Rudiger was also heavily involved throughout, including in a fracas after full-time.
Tuchel said, "He's always important and he did not accept today to lose, which was necessary. We expected that it can be an intense match for Toni and Azpi because of the very unique style of defending. We expected to have spaces where we could drive in and it to be a very intense game.
"They made a lot of pressure so we had to be constantly focused in the game on defending as well as attacking.
"You cannot have Toni as an emotional and aggressive leader on the pitch and suddenly not be involved if there are some team-mates to protect. This is 100 per cent Toni and how I observed it [the late incident] was no harm done."
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