Chelsea Injuries: Headcount Before Villa Game

What on earth are they putting the lads through at Cobham these days?

Chelsea’s injury list—a list that used to have us raising our eyebrows as it grew by the week, now has us pulling our hair out with it growing by the day.

And before any of the opposition jump in and suggest we’re exaggerating, let’s have a look at what’s going on ahead of Sunday afternoon’s game against Aston Villa shall we?

The Chelsea Injury List:

 

MICHAEL ESSIEN—Out with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament since early September and likely to remain out until the early part of 2009.

 

RICARDO CARVALHO—Went off within 12 minutes of the game against Manchester United last month, and expected to remain out of action for a few more weeks at least.

 

DECO—Pulled out of the game against Manchester United last month having torn a thigh muscle in the warm-up. Latest reports suggest he appeared at training for a "rub down" although remains out for this weekend’s game.

 

JOE COLE—Has missed the last couple of games. Another player experiencing a torn muscle and another player unlikely to be ready in time for the weekend.

 

ASHLEY COLE—Missed the game against Cluj on Wednesday with "lower back pain". Unlikely to be risked against Aston Villa.

 

DIDIER DROGBA—Stretchered off just over half-way through Wednesday night’s game, with optimistic estimates suggesting he’ll be out for "weeks".

 

JOHN TERRY—Reported to have been in pain from around 15 minutes into the game against Cluj and a recurrence of his back trouble looks increasingly likely to see the Chelsea captain miss out this weekend.

 

ALEX—Another player reported to be experiencing pain from more or less the start of Wednesday’s game after apparently taking the phrase "working his arse off" a little too literally. Fingers crossed a "buttock strain" isn’t enough to keep the defender out of Sunday’s game.

 

 

So, with injuries totally depleting the Chelsea first team right now, will we have enough left to get the result we need?

 

I seem to be swinging backwards and forwards when it comes to my opinion of Scolari and our squad is one of the things that has seen me question him since his arrival.

 

Whilst I’ve been more than happy with his tactics, I said a while back that Scolari cutting our squad back without bringing in enough cover showed his naivety as far as the Premier League is concerned.

 

I mean, let’s face it, although no-one could possibly predict us ending up with as many players missing as we have right now, Chelsea have hardly been strangers to injuries over the past few seasons, so it really should have been a consideration.

 

Add to that his lack of a plan B when we failed to sign Robinho, and Drogba’s recent injury has only served to highlight exactly why that particular shrug of the shoulders could bite him on the arse.

 

You see, while Alex Ferguson has the luxury of choosing between the sort of class that Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney, and the newly-acquainted-with-goal Dimitar Berbatov, can bring him, Scolari has the fragile Salomon Kalou, a goal-shy Nicolas Anelka, and the inexperienced Franco Di Santo.

 

Shevchenko and Pizarro may very well have been less than prolific for Chelsea (although both incidentally came out of this week’s European games with a lot more glory than our own forwards), but letting them go and bringing in no replacements at all hardly equates to covering your arse for all eventualities.

 

So while Luiz Felipe Scolari remains optimistic that Chelsea will get through the little injury disaster they’re currently facing, when it comes to picking the team this weekend, I’ve got a feeling it won’t be the most inspiring list of "availables" the Chelsea boss has ever seen.