Alonso explains Chelsea star’s absence – and admits his side were not good enough against Sunderland

Chelsea boss Xabi Alonso has revealed Josh Acheampong missed the 1-0 defeat to Sunderland after picking up an injury problem ahead of the game.

Acheampong was unavailable after feeling discomfort on Saturday, adding to Chelsea’s shortage of options.

“Yesterday, Josh felt something and he was not fine to play,” Alonso said.

“So, yeah, we are short on options. And we need to go through this time.”

Alonso also admitted Chelsea are missing Joao Pedro, who remains sidelined through injury.

“You didn’t ask that last week when we won against United,” he said.

“So, for sure, we miss him.

“Even when we win, even when we lose, we miss some players that we have injured.

“And for sure, we are waiting to have them back because they are important. And now we need to use the time to recover them.”

Alonso was also frustrated with the way Chelsea conceded the decisive penalty against Sunderland, which was scored by Enzo Le Fee, particularly after working on the situation in training.

“I’m not happy with how we defended that situation,” he said.

“Something that we could avoid, something that we had worked during the week.

“From that action to give a penalty is not good for us.

“We missed a bit of patience, a bit of quality, creativity in the last third to create more chances. You need to be more consistent to move the ball from one side to the other. We didn’t do good enough.”