Chelsea have confirmed that Thiago Silva will spend an unspecified amount of time on the sidelines with a knee injury.
During the first half of Sunday's Premier League fixture with Tottenham Hotspur, Silva successfully challenged Harry Kane inside the penalty area.
However, a combination of an awkward landing and Kane falling on top of him led to Silva requiring several minutes of treatment from Chelsea's medical staff.
Although the 38-year-old attempted to play on, he quickly signalled to the substitutes' bench that he was in no position to continue and encouraged Wesley Fofana to step up his warm-up.
While Silva was able to walk off the pitch at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, everyone associated with Chelsea naturally had concerns about their leading centre-back.
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After the game, Graham Potter indicated that he was unsure of the severity of the injury, but a report on Monday indicated that the Brazil international faced a race against time to be fit for the second leg of the Champions League last-16 tie with Borussia Dortmund on March 7.
On Tuesday morning, Chelsea released a statement to confirm Silva's issue, although the West Londoners stopped short of revealing a potential recovery time.
It read: "Having sustained a knee injury during the first half of Sunday's match against Tottenham Hotspur, Thiago underwent further assessment and a scan on his return to the training centre on Monday.
"Scan results from those assessments have confirmed damage to Thiago's knee ligaments and he will now work closely with the club' medical department during his rehabilitation to return to action as soon as possible."
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Silva has effectively been ruled out of Saturday's Premier League encounter with Leeds United, and Potter has a number of alternatives for that fixture.
Kalidou Koulibaly, Fofana, Benoit Badiashile and Trevoh Chalobah will all hope to feature in what is a must-win contest for the Blues if they wish to get back into contention for European qualification.
That pool of options is reduced for European matches, however, with Badiashile having been left out of the squad for the knockout stages.
Meanwhile, Chalobah was omitted from the group for the Spurs clash, casting doubt over where the academy graduate currently sits in the pecking order under Potter.
Darren Plant
