Jose Mourinho blamed the poor pitch at Haifa's Sammy Ofer Stadium for the ankle injury to John Terry which is expected to see the Chelsea captain ruled out of Sunday's Barclays Premier League clash at Tottenham.
Chelsea's Champions League fate will go to the final group game after an unconvincing 4-0 win over 10-man Maccabi Tel Aviv saw them earn successive victories for the first time in two months.
Whether a resurgence, following the win over Norwich, is real will be tested by Spurs, but there is a major doubt over whether Terry will feature at White Hart Lane after he departed on a stretcher.
"The surface was bad and dangerous," Mourinho said.
"John has an ankle problem that we don't know yet the dimension of.
"For John to leave the pitch with the result 1-0 I know already that he is in trouble.
"My medical department is really good. John is a special guy, with a special desire to recover.
"But I think to leave the pitch with the result 1-0, I don't believe too much that he can play (against Spurs)."
Ramires was not in the matchday squad after suffering an injury in training on Monday, when Chelsea tried to minimise their time on the pitch.
"Yesterday we tried to protect (the pitch), we trained just a little bit. But by my surprise Maccabi were training after us, plus the warm-up before the game," Mourinho said.
"The pitch was really bad. Ramires slid and had a muscular injury."
After Gary Cahill's opening goal, Mourinho took it upon himself to replace divots on the pitch in front of his technical area.
He said: "I think after what I did, I think it was worse. I tried."
