Chelsea manager José Mourinho says his side are “in trouble” because of the injury problems to strikers Diego Costa and Loïc Rémy.
The Portuguese manager was speaking ahead of tonight’s game with Shrewsbury Town in the League Cup, mentioning specifically Ramires and Rémy as his biggest concerns.
Chelsea were held 1-1 at Manchester United on Sunday meaning they have little more than 50 appears between the two games. However, with the League Cup often seen as unimportant, the Blues are expected to play a reserve side at Stamford Bridge this evening.
Mourinho said:
“I have only one day, we travel to London and we are travelling to Shrewsbury. We are in trouble because we have so many injured players.”
Perhaps the Chelsea boss has not kept up-to-date with Arsenal and Manchester United’s injury lists all season. In comparison, their fellow Premier League rivals have had several more injuries throughout the season.
The Chelsea boss continued:
“It is even more difficult for us to go. We have to go. We now have a difficult match. Because they are doing very well in their league and doing very well against superior teams in the Capital One Cup. It’s a big day for them. We know it will be difficult for us. But that’s football.
“Every game is important. Shrewsbury is not a friendly. We have to play matches with respect and the best way to respect Shrewsbury is to go there with a good team. Not to go there with a weak team and lose. It is to go there with a good team –if they win, they win, but they win against a good team. We are in a difficult situation with regards to today but, when you look at the players who didn’t play – Schürrle, Salah, Zouma, Aké, Mikel – these boys are obviously going to have to play.”
Whilst Mourinho does say the League Cup is important to him, he perhaps does not realise that André Schürrle, Mohamed Salah, Kurt Zouma, Nathan Aké and John Obi Mikel are significantly better players than what Tuesday night’s opposition are able to put together.
André Schürrlecan play as the lone striker tonight – the German international did so at Mainz 05 at the start of his career before playing a support role to Stefan Kießling at Bayer 04 Leverkusen.
Didier Drogba is not expected to play having played the full 90 minutes against Manchester United only two days ago.
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