Christmas Not Looking So Merry As Absentees Mount For Chelsea
Oh bloody hell! Whilst we’re all still debating whether or not we’ll cope with Didier Drogba’s absence through ACON duty, the fact that Nicolas Anelka missed the game through injury on Sunday seems to have been overlooked – until today’s announcement that is.
Word is that Nicolas Anelka has failed to respond to treatment on a calf injury and he’ll now miss most of our busy Christmas period along with the Ivorian. What we’re told is that Anelka will miss the Boxing Day game against Birmingham and the Fulham game 2 days later, whilst Drogba and Kalou have to report to the Ivory Coast’s training camp on December 27th, so to say we’ll be a little depleted up front is putting it mildly.
I mean, obviously we still have Sturridge and Borini so it’s not as if we don’t have any replacements at all but if you compare Drogba and Anelka’s goals this season to that of the two youngsters, it’s not exactly ideal. Add to that the fact that both of them probably thought Ancelotti had re-christened them ‘bench’, then it’s not really surprising we feel a little less confident going into Christmas.
If Ancelotti’s worried though, he certainly isn’t letting on, saying “I have a lot of confidence in my strikers, not only Drogba, Kalou and Anelka, but also Sturridge and Borini. Against Fulham maybe we have only Sturridge and Borini but in January Anelka will be ready to play. He has a little muscle problem and will not be able to play these games. But Sturridge has a good opportunity to show his quality. He played very well against West Ham and maybe he will play from the beginning against Birmingham. These are very important games for us and we’re in a very good position. We have four more points at the top, although we didn’t play well in the last few games. We have to stay concentrated and focused. We are playing against very strong teams, they are doing very good results and performances. We have to pay attention and this is a very important moment for the future.”
And whilst we might be thinking a dip into the January transfer market is called for, Ancelotti insists “We have a good solution internally. I didn’t ask for new players to come to the club because it could be a problem in February and March.”
I have to say it’s the problem over the next month I’m more worried about though.
Filed under: Current Players, Injuries, Rants
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Drogba shouldn’t be released until after the Fulham game, The FIFA rule allows players to stay 10 days before the Tournament bigins surely one day cant be a problem for ivory coast. We need our defence to stop leaking goals and then we might do with one nil score line.
come on lets try the young lads already we’ve done no better lately with the regulars certainly some freshness, hunger, pace and intensity would do no harm. might as well throw in kakuta n matic n lets party. its boxing day! open a surprise box ! i dont understand the anxiety surrounding us, against teams like birmingham, fulham blah blah blah….. its already mid-season lets roll up the sleeve n get on with it. produce 70% of our strength these r the mid-table wannabes we normally kill off in our sleep. we’ll miss drogba n anelka for sure but who r we to sentence the young lads to death b4 they r tried? the other 19 pl teams hv reliable young players regularly playing. buy jack rodwell, ha, while we hv a 6ft 3″ matic? n a wonder kid in kakuta? buy aguero, ha, as if he is able to gel immediately hell he cant even pronounce stamford bridge backwards. n then what? use him for a month n then marry him with the bench? we keep buying youngsters n then loan them out 1 by 1 some never grow to see the bridge again n some r sold to become england player (carlton cole). juz shoot frank arnesen n close the academy save the $ n continue buying expensive speculative players n 10 years from now develop nothing win nothing but a reputation of having 15 or maybe 20 managers never to survive the bridge. come on hv some guts, do a theo or aaron already!
injuries and national call ups come with the package so its all up the the manager to manage the problem instead of magnifying it. managers like arsene n sir alex would look into the academy immediately and charge ahead with youngsters. yes they dont always get away with it but at least they’ve tried. so far carlo has never put faith into our youngsters at all. unless we are 4-0 up or 1-0 down. The most he did was put them in the teams as unused subs. Either he has no faith in them or in fear a possible backlash once they cost him a defeat. Trusting sturridge n borini? I dont believe a word of it. Shame of him to lie in the face of these young lads with burning belly hell bent on impressing him. He is just an old-school sleeping next to a play-safe textbook cooking up ready excuses when his regular big names falter game after game. [ We played against a very good team today.] West Ham? Either i need a set of hearing aids or he needs a pair of glass. A sacking is lurking because Roman is not as patient as us. And by the way Roman never said dont use the kids.
Mono .. Fulham is no ‘blah blah’ .. thats a potentially tuff game we need to concentrate about ..
i agree with sullivan .. we shud have given these guys the chance when we played dead rubbers in CL .. or atleast in the last 20-30 mins of the second half ..
mono was right abt carlo.we played very badly against fulham in the first half.had we not switch to wing play using sturridge n kalou we ould hv lost the game.carlo is juz like rafa he would stick to a rigid set of old guns even if they played below-par game after game.half a season gone by now some teams r fighting for their lives or simply just to stay up.of course they will play w 10 men behind the ball.anyone notice zamora at all?was he a threat or just a lone striker practically left alone up there waiting for a chance? that never came except for carlvalho miscalculated backpass.i m sick at every mention of diamond formation because it is so easy to break it down.just park a bus n a draw is almost in the pocket already.what’s wrong with wing play?we hv many speedy aaron-looking players put on the bench n left to rot.but i believe every game fr now on will be the same.we’ll keep turning to lady luck for deflected own goals to win.shame of us.anyone watch MU or arsenal lately?look where the goals came from. wing play,lots n lots of high pace wing play. we dont hv wingers or what? we hv but carlo just wont use them because they r for bench decorations only
why change a system after half time when we could start it right from the go.the next time we might not be as lucky as 1-0 down.what if we r 3-0 down?can we still pray for 3 own goals plus 1 from open play to win? that is more than winning ugly. its winning dirty. n how come the rotation system so well-practised never include starting the young lads? these r quality young lads the best we hv seen so far n why r they not coming on more often? now maybe? fat hopes. carlo has no such guts as alex or arsene. our wonder kids r destined to rot in the bench
fulham is a blah blah blah, stoke hit them with 3 before they crawled back painstakingly to 3-2 n collapsed. to stoke? that makes them a blah blah blah