Mauricio Pochettino details why £53m star will not play for the club again this season

Chelsea confirmed Romeo Lavia suffered a further setback in training and will now miss the rest of the season. The Belgian midfielder joined Chelsea in the summer for a fee of £53million with Chelsea beating competition from rivals Liverpool for his signature.

He arrived at the club with an injury and then suffered his first relapse when he was just getting closer to being fit. He did not make his debut until after Christmas when he was given the last 32 minutes to build his match fitness against Crystal Palace.

Since then, a thigh injury has forced him out and manager Pochettino speaking to the press ahead of the game against Burnley admitted the whole episode was unfortunate.

Pochettino told the press: "It's a really difficult situation and he is sad and he can't be happy. But I think sometimes these things can happen.

"He arrived with a problem from Southampton and he couldn't train with us. He recovered and trained and after that. It's really sad because when a player arrives he wants to play. Yes, it's really difficult situation for him. He's sad. He's not happy because he only plays 30 minutes.

"For a new player arriving at the club. It's a thing that sometimes happens in football. When the club signed him, he arrived with problems from Southampton.

"He could not train with us in the first months. When he started to be ready to prepare, he suffered a problem in his feet. And then he recovered, played only 30 minutes and got injured. From December, we didn't have the possibility to train with him because he was never available or really close. After December, four months, never we had the possibility to train with him. Really sad news."

This has been an incredibly challenging season for the Blues on the treatment table with club captain Reece James forced to miss the last three months due to hamstring surgery he had to take.

Ahead of the weekend, Chelsea are likely to be without at least nine players including Christopher Nkunku and Carney Chukwuemeka, who was forced out of the England under-21 games.

Trevoh Chalobah and Robert Sanchez who both played in the FA Cup game against Leicester have also picked up fresh injuries and will not be involved this weekend in what has become the story of the season.

Results though have improved lately with the team reaching the semi-final of the FA Cup and just losing one of their last 15 home games.