Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has defended his team's medical department.
The Argentine was asked why his side is stretched so thin in terms of injuries.
The Stamford Bridge club are not even in any European competition this season.
However, they had very few bench options during their 1-0 defeat to Middlesbrough away from home in the Carabao Cup semi final first leg.
Post-game, Pochettino stated on injuries: What a difficult question. What a difficult answer. Bad luck because some injuries you cannot manage. It's not about training, not about capacity, quality in all of the areas. That sometimes is the profile.
Difficult answer because I think we are suffering too many injuries. I don't want to say bad luck as it is an easy way to justify. But to be honest, so bad luck, look Nkunku, Fofana, Lavia, Reece James, too many. Situation is like this with 10 to 12 players out.
Difficult when you don't have all of the squad fit to work. Always every single week or every single game is about finding the right balance in the team. I don't like to be a victim but it is true it is really tough. We are going to be positive. That is the first 90 minutes. We are losing one-nil and now we have the second leg, 90 minutes more at Stamford Bridge and we need to be positive.
Now, what we need to do because we don't know if we will recover players in time for Fulham. In a few days we have another game in the Premier League we need to win. Now we need to provide our players with trust and confidence in our players and recover as soon as possible to play Saturday in the best condition."
