Chelsea’s Trevoh Chalobah disputes Naby Keita challenge after ‘needing stitches’

Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah has hit out at referee Stuart Attwell after a high challenge from Naby Keita – that went unpunished – left him needing stitches. The right-sided centre-back and his Blues team-mates were defeated 11-10 on penalties by Liverpool at Wembley Stadium after a pulsating 120 minutes of unmissable action.

Chalobah was one of those to step up and score before substitute goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga blasted his spot-kick over and into the Liverpool end.

But there was an element of dissatisfaction from the European champions, who felt a number of key decisions in the game went against them.

Romelu Lukaku struck what could have been the winner in extra-time but the Belgian was ruled offside by the barest of margins.

However, more controversially, Liverpool midfielder Keita somehow escaped punishment after planting his studs into Chalobah’s groin following a mistimed challenge.

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Runner-up Chalobah struggled to bite his tongue after the match, tweeting: “[I] Had to get stitches because of this. [The] Referee is right there I don’t get it?”

Chalobah was responding to a clip from Sky Sports of pundit Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink questioning the decision, which he felt Attwell and the VAR officials got wrong.

He said: “I’m surprised that nothing has been said about it and we are now looking at it.

“But for me, if you look at Keita’s movement, he slows down and then he goes for the tackle.

“But Keita – if you look here – totally misses the ball. He totally misses the ball and hits the player really hard.

“In the first angle you can see that as Naby Keita gets to it, he just slows himself up, he makes sure he’s not going to get hurt and he puts his foot into the groin area.

“I think he’s really, really lucky.”

Hasselbaink then added: “He also knows he’s not going to get injured but he stays on the floor acting like he is hit. So he knows ‘I might be wrong here, I might be late.’

“I don’t want to see players sent off as it would have spoiled the game. But this is a really bad tackle.”