Ancelotti Ready For a Cold January, As He Puts Belief In Young Chelsea Strikers

As the January transfer period nears, Chelsea may be the only team that may not open their cheque book. Manchester United, the contenders for the Barclays Premier League Title, are in serious need of reinforcement. Their defensive frailties and injuries have left them weaker than ever, and the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo has been no help whatsoever.

Recent reports have started to come in about Sergio Aguero, and Aguero himself has recently stated that he knows Chelsea are interested in him.

Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and others including Michael Essien will soon head off to Africa to participate in the African Cup of Nations. The tournament will start January 10th, and the players will need to join their respective teams 14 days earlier.

Nicolas Anelka, Ancelotti's other main striker is out injured for upcoming games against Birmingham and high-flying Fulham because of a muscle strain. Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti will most likely turn to his young guns Daniel Sturridge, and Fabio Borini. The Chelsea boss may also recall on-loan striker Franco Di Santo. Ancelotti is happy to rely on his young strikers to help Chelsea through one of the most critical periods of the season.

Currently, Chelsea are four points clear of Manchester United, but their poor December form hasn't been much to talk about, as they won only one of the previous five games.

"No, I'm not changing my mind," Ancelotti said. "I didn't ask (owner) Roman (Abramovich) for new players and he has not asked me if I want them."

"I have a lot of confidence in my strikers. Not only Drogba, not only Kalou, not only Anelka—also Sturridge and Borini. Against Fulham, maybe we'll only have Sturridge and Borini, but in January we'll have Anelka and, in January, he'll be ready to play."

"I didn't ask for new players to my club. I think that we have good solutions internally. Even if we lose the African players. If you have new players, maybe it's a problem in February or March. We don't need them in this moment, to have new players.

"Anelka has a little injury, a muscle problem. It's a small problem but he's not ready to play in these games. Against Fulham also.

"We will still have 11 against Fulham. If Didier is not here, we can put in other players. Sturridge has an opportunity to show his qualities. He played against West Ham very well in that second half and, maybe, against Birmingham he can play from the beginning.

"They are very important games. We are in a very good position. We have four more points at the top.

"We're not in our best moment because we didn't play well in the last few games but, because of this, we have to stay concentrated and focused to try and win our next matches.

"We play very strong teams having very good results, Birmingham and Fulham, so we have to pay attention. It's a very important moment but we still have possibilities, if we do 100%, to win."