Lampard: Chelsea hopes dented by Cech lay-off

CHELSEA midfielder Frank Lampard labelled Petr Cech’s loss as a “huge blow” after the goalkeeper was carried off on a stretcher during their Champions League defeat to Inter Milan.

Cech was carried off in the second-half of Wednesday night’s 2-1 defeat after damaging his calf collecting a cross. He will now be out for at least a month after tearing a calf muscle.

The Czech Republic international underwent scans on the injury yesterday and the club have now confirmed that Cech will be out for up to a month.

It means he will miss tomorrow’s clash with Manchester City at Stamford Bridge and the return leg against Inter Milan on March 16.

A spokesman for Chelsea said: “Today’s scans confirm that Petr Cech suffered a tear in a calf muscle in the Inter game. He is expected to be out for three to four weeks.”

Cech’s injury compounded a night when Chelsea lost their last-16 first-leg tie 2-1 at the San Siro despite outplaying their hosts for much of the game.

Chelsea, facing former boss Jose Mourinho for the first time since he was sacked in September 2007, were stunned by a third-minute strike from Diego Milito.

Salomon Kalou grabbed a vital away goal with the equaliser in the 51st minute only for Esteban Cambiasso to fire the winner four minutes later.

However, despite the loss of Cech, Lampard believes that understudy Hilario has shown before that he has all the necessary qualities to replace him.

“It is a huge blow to lose Petr,” admitted Lampard.

“He has been in fantastic form as everyone knows and he has always been up there with the best in the world and no-one wants to lose that. But Hilario has never let us down at all. He has been brilliant every time he has come in whether it is for one game or a run of them.”

Lampard does not believe Chelsea can be lauded as favourites to go through to the quarter-finals despite a crucial away goal.

It will be an emotional return to Stamford Bridge for Mourinho and Lampard is well aware that Inter have the capability to damage them at home as well.

“The away goal is very important these days and a 1-0 defeat would have been very frustrating for us,” added the England midfielder.

“But we were pleased to get it back to 1-1 and then frustrated to give away another one.

“But our goal does give us something to go for at home.

“We know if we win the game 1-0 we go through but also we have confidence in ourselves that we can create as many chances, if not more, than we did here and try and score more than one goal.

“We had a lot of shots on target and a probable penalty, but we knew the way Inter Milan were going to play.

“The early goal killed us a little bit. We probably deserved to draw the game but we are halfway there and it is fairly well balanced now.”

He added: “Inter Milan are a very good team and not to be underestimated. I think it would be very naive to say we are the favourites because they can also score at our place. So I would say the tie is 50-50.”