Wesley Fofana speaks out after Chelsea injury claim made during Aston Villa win

Chelsea started Wesley Fofana against Aston Villa after serving a one-match suspension during the defeat to Arsenal for being sent off in the draw with Burnley

Wesley Fofana has denied sustaining an injury during Chelsea's win over Aston Villa despite appearing to limp off after being substituted late on.

Fofana, 25, came straight back into the starting line-up at Villa Park after serving a one-match suspension during Sunday's defeat to Arsenal. However, the defender did not complete 90 minutes, being replaced by Adarabioyo, one of five changes Liam Rosenior made.

Before coming off, Fofana went down and received attention from Chelsea's medical staff, who then helped him off the pitch. The defender briefly came back on before a like-for-like change took place in the 79th minute.

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Fofana went down the tunnel rather than taking a seat in the dugout and appeared to be limping. However, the defender later denied suffering from any injury.

In response to a post on X saying that he seemed injury and limped down the tunnel, Fofana replied: "Huh? I have nothing". The player also punctuated that response with two rolling-on-the-floor laughing emojis.

Intriguingly, Blues boss Rosenior said during his post-match press conference: "So far I haven't heard of any injury issues." Enzo Fernandez also came off at the same time as Fofana, with Marc Cucurella replacing him.

Those were the second and third changes Rosenior made, after already introducing Romeo Lavia in place of Malo Gusto. Both goalscorers then came off five minutes from time, with Liam Delap deputising for hat-trick hero Joao Pedro while Andrey Santos replaced Cole Palmer.

Substitutions are not rare for Fofana, with the defender not completing the 90 minutes seven of the 13 times he has started a match across all competitions this season. The last time he did so was the 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers six matches ago.

That was the most recent of four occasions since Rosenior's appointment and only one in the Premier League. The others were against the League Cup semi-final second leg against Arsenal, and their last two Champions League matches in the league phase, against Napoli and Paphos.

Rosenior backed Fofana after the Arsenal match in the face of his player receiving racist abuse. He said: "It was a tough day for Wes. Firstly, what happened in the game, and secondly, the fallout from that was the racist abuse he got online.

"Wes is a tough guy, a good guy, and we spoke about racism last week in the press conference and how it affects you. It shouldn't exist, whether it's online, verbal or in person, it's something we have to try our very best to eradicate in life, let alone football. But Wes is fine and has trained well this week.'