Chelsea star suffers injury after just four minutes and leaves pitch distraught

Romeo Lavia looked distraught as he was forced to leave the pitch after just four minutes of Chelsea's match against Qarabag at the Tofik Bakhramov Stadium on Wednesday night. The 21-year-old midfielder, who seemed to have a muscle issue, was substituted for Moises Caicedo.

Enzo Maresca has been gradually reintegrating Lavia, who missed the start of the season due to injury. But he had to abandon that plan when the Belgian youngster felt an issue and sat down on the turf, before receiving medical treatment and being informed he could not continue.

He also appeared to throw a water bottle as he exited the pitch, publicly showing how frustrated he is at another possible injury setback. Lavia's time at Chelsea has largely been marred by injury.

Speaking before a lengthy journey to Baku, Azerbaijan, the Blues head coach gave an update on Lavia's fitness. "The main target for Romeo now is to be fit," Maresca said. "Don't get any injuries. For me, at this moment, Romeo is where Reece was more or less one year ago in terms of back after a long time. We need to manage him every minute, every day, every second.

"And the target with him is just to keep him fit. So, he's training with us. He's OK. He's 100 per cent fit. But we need to be very careful with him because we don't want him to be out again and finally he can enjoy being a football player."

Maresca added: "In the Forest game, we planned for him 45 minutes. Then Ajax, I think he played one hour, 70 minutes. The other day against Tottenham, when he was on, he was very good.

"We are happy with Romeo. We are happy with the way he's progressing. And the only thing we want is to keep him fit. So, I would like to have Romeo inside the pitch always. But it's my duty to try to protect also him."

Lavia made his season debut against Brighton, entering the fray from the bench in the 3-1 loss.

Lavia's injury was a double blow for Maresca, who had planned to give Caicedo some rest from his busy schedule against one of the lower-ranked opponents in the competition.

But having come off the bench for Lavia, Caicedo's night suddenly became a busy one.