Thomas Tuchel seemed relaxed about the condition of Edouard Mendy after the goalkeeper suffered a rib injury in Sunday s 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa, less then a week before the Champions League final.
Mendy was replaced by Kepa Arrizabalaga at half-time, with the Senegal international having hurt his ribs after colliding with the goal frame.
Chelsea went on to secure qualification for the Champions League regardless of their defeat to Villa, though the fitness of their first-choice goalkeeper was undoubtedly a concern with such an important game on the horizon.
Mendy joined Chelsea last year and quickly established himself as the club s primary option between the posts under Frank Lampard, before retaining his place when Tuchel came in four months ago.
The German expects a firm update on Monday but is optimistic the goalkeeper will be available to face Manchester City in Porto Saturday.
Asked how they handled Mendy s loss, Tuchel told reporters: It is easy to handle.
He fell into the frame of the net. He feels a big pain in his ribs. We will have an update tomorrow with what s going on.
We will see if it is possible [for him to play on Saturday] and if it is possible, we will push to do everything so he is in goal on Saturday.
Mendy has kept 16 clean sheets in the Premier League this season, a haul bettered by only Thibaut Courtois (17), Jan Oblak (18), Ederson (19) and Mike Maignan (21) across the top five European leagues in 2020-21.
His nine clean sheets since Tuchel s appointment is only behind Maignan s 11 over the same period.
Nevertheless, his xGOT (expected goals on target) conceded does leave a little to be desired, as his 26 goals let in is from a xGOT of 22.8.
This means the average goalkeeper would have expected to only let in roughly 23 goals from the quality of chances against him, therefore suggesting Mendy can do better.
Oblak has the best record (among goalkeepers to have played 15 or more games) in this regard over Europe s top five leagues, preventing LaLiga champions Atletico Madrid from conceding 8.6 goals more than they have.
However, Kepa s form from last season still shows how much of an upgrade Mendy has been.
Kepa conceded 47 Premier League goals from an xGOT value of 34.3, which suggests he was at fault for 12.7 goals – that was the third-worst such record across the top five leagues.
The Spaniard cannot be blamed too much for Sunday s defeat, though, the only goal he conceded coming via a penalty.
However, Tuchel accepts Chelsea got lucky, with Tottenham s 4-2 win over Leicester City ultimately vital in ensuring the Blues finished fourth.
We are lucky that Tottenham did the job for us and finished the job for us today. Like I said, we came to win and to put any doubts to the side but it was not possible, Tuchel continued.
We are in the position, were in it, that it was possible to end in the four even with a defeat and that was possible because of the team s hard work and consistently good results.
We need to adjust details and we need to be spot on on Saturday as we want a positive outcome.
