Thibaut Courtois: Of course Chelsea miss Nemanja Matic - but he decided to leave

Rivals | Nemanja Matic left Chelsea for Manchester United last summer
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Vaishali Bhardwaj2 November 2017

Thibaut Courtois has admitted that Chelsea miss the quality of Nemanja Matic, but insists the club could not keep a player who did not want to stay.

Chelsea made the surprising decision to sell Matic to Premier League rivals Manchester United for £40m in the summer after the midfielder asked to leave the champions following the arrival of Tiemoue Bakayoko from Monaco.

Matic has since gone on to become an integral part of United's midfield - being named the man of the match for his performance in the Red Devils' 2-0 Champions League win over Benfica on Tuesday.

Meanwhile on the same night, Chelsea were struggling in Italy and lost 3-0 to Roma in the absence of key midfield man N'Golo Kante, who has been sidelined with a hamstring injury since the international break.

In Pictures | Roma vs Chelsea | 31/10/2017

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Courtois admits Chelsea were always going to miss Matic especially with the injuries the team have faced to their midfielders this season, but insists the club were right to sell a player who did not want to remain at Stamford Bridge.

"We know Nemanja’s qualities, he is someone who last year gave us the balance as well," Courtois told reporters after the loss to Roma at the Stadio Olimpico.

"He decided to go to another team, so we won’t live in the past.

"Our midfield is very good, we have very strong players. But if you have two injuries in midfield, then, of course, you can say yeah we miss Nemanja because he is another quality player and he is doing well in Manchester."

Looking ahead | Thibaut Courtois
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When then asked whether the Chelsea players were as surprised as fans to see Matic join United, Courtois added: "Those are questions you need to ask to the people who made that happen.

"If a player nowadays wants to go to a team, then he has – I don’t want to say the power – but if he has a strong will to leave and join another team then it is hard for the club.

"You cannot just ignore him and say ‘you cannot leave’ because then you have a disappointed player who won’t play at his best. So obviously for us you give a player to another big team, but they are choices that are made in football and we have some quality midfielders, so I hope we can show on Sunday that we are better."