ROMEO Lavia thanked Chelsea and the medical staff after he finally made his full debut in the Blues’ 2-0 defeat to Manchester City at Stamford Bridge last weekend.
Erling Haaland scored the opener in the eighteenth minute and former Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic added the second six minutes from time.
Lavia had only made one substitute appearance since his £60million move from Southampton last summer after injury problems.
“I’m extremely grateful for the club and the medical staff after my struggles last season,” Lavia said.
“Pre-season helped me to get here today and I’m just grateful to be back with the team. I don’t really want to speak about my time injured but it’s never easy. No one wants to be injured. From there you just have to see the positives and be ready.”
He added: “I think there are a lot of positives to take from this game, we had a lot of chances,. We felt like we had the chance to get on top but it didn’t happen. They were clinical, but we had the chance to come back at times. When you play against good teams you know that these types of things can happen.
“It’s about learning from it. It’s only the first game of the season. There are 38 games in the season and as you can see something is growing, you can definitely see that on the pitch.
“Obviously, the result didn’t go our way today on the pitch, but I think the way we are playing and the way we are now is exactly where we want to be. We are taking the good things and focusing on the next game.”
