Chelsea will be without the services of Thiago Silva for Thursday's FA Cup fifth-round match at Barnsley.
The Brazilian is out with injury after leaving the Blues' 1-0 victory over Tottenham last week, manager Thomas Tuchel confirmed. Silva also missed Chelsea's victorious Premier League visit to Sheffield United over the weekend
"Thiago is out for tomorrow for sure,’ Tuchel said on Wednesday. "He feels better and better though, which is good and he’s getting the right treatment. One thing we can be sure of with Thiago though is that he will be spending every minute available to him to speed up the process of healing. It is a muscle injury though so we cannot force it and we will wait for Thiago."
While Chelsea will be missing some veteran presence at the back, Tuchel announced that the midfield would be getting a boost with N'Golo Kante and Hakim Ziyech set to start against the Championship side.
"N’Golo will start tomorrow and I am so happy to have him back again. We put him on the pitch against Tottenham and he helped everybody on the pitch, which is what he does," the coach said. "Hakim is another one who hopefully tomorrow we will see the best of him. We count on Hakim to do something different, no doubt about that. He has lots of quality and we count on him like everyone else, no doubt about that.
"He has had a good training week and tomorrow he will have the chance to show the same quality and determination he shows in training."