CHELSEA’S demolition of Newcastle United might have boosted the reigning Premier League champions’ confidence ahead of tomorrow’s Champions League tie with Paris St Germain – but it came at a cost, with John Terry a major doubt for the trip to the French capital.

Terry sustained a hamstring injury as he tussled with Aleksandar Mitrovic during the first half of Chelsea’s weekend win, and hobbled off shortly after the half-hour mark to be replaced by Baba Rahman.

The influential centre-half was assessed by Chelsea’s medical department yesterday, and is considered a major doubt for tomorrow’s last-16 tie.

With Kurt Zouma expected to miss the rest of the season after damaging his knee, that could mean Chelsea having to line up with the inexperienced Baba alongside Gary Cahill, who has been a fringe performer himself for the majority of the campaign.

“We will have to see what the damage is,” said Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink. “After an intense game, two days is generally not enough (to recover). You normally have to consider at least three, but it’s good to go with a win.

“Hopefully, it is only a small muscular problem, but in cases like that it’s better to have one or two days more for recovery.

“We have another huge game next weekend in the FA Cup (against Manchester City), so we must calm down now and take wise decisions towards Tuesday and the upcoming weekend.”

At least Hiddink can take some solace from the form of his side’s attacking players, with Saturday’s thrashing of an admittedly poor Newcastle team evoking memories of some of the flowing football that swept Chelsea to the title last season.

Diego Costa was back to his barnstorming best in attack, Pedro, Eden Hazard and Willian caused a succession of problems with their breaks into the box from midfield and Cesc Fabregas was in imperious form as he conducted things from a deep-lying role.

“We killed them in 20 minutes, and then it was more and more easy to play,” said Willian, who scored Chelsea’s third goal. “Now, we have more confidence to go there (Paris St Germain) and play. Paris have a great team, great players, but we go there to try to win the game.

“Diego is a great player, and we have no doubts about him and his quality. He has scored so many goals. I gave one assist for him, and he gave one to me. I enjoy playing with him a lot.”