Chelsea Pre-Spurs Team News: Mourinho On Mata, Ramires & Van Ginkel

Chelsea make the trip across London to take on Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane on Saturday lunchtime.

Ahead of the game boss Jose Mourinho has been holding his pre-match press conference today and he gave chelseafc.com a team news and injury update with the latest on Juan Mata, Ramires and Marco van Ginkel.

The Blues warmed up for the Spurs match with a comfortable 2-0 win over League One outfit Swindon Town in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday night, but the match saw two of Chelsea’s midfielder’s forced off through injury.

Dutchman Marco van Ginkel – who only joined the club in the summer – picked up a nasty anterior cruciate ligament injury and Mourinho confirmed that while his surgery was a success, the youngster is unlikely to play again this season.

Ramires was forced off with a hip injury in midweek but the Chelsea boss is hopeful he will be able to call upon the Brazilian midfielder for tomorrow’s trip to the Lane. Mourinho told the clubs official website:

‘The surgery went well [on van Ginkel], the doctor is happy with the way the surgery was made. Now he has to wait for a long time. It’s very sad for a kid who was in an important season for his development but that’s football, sometimes it happens. We lose a player for almost the whole season, I think five months, six months, it’s a long time. To be back when the season is hot and the clubs are playing crucial matches, to be back directly for that, we don’t know.

‘The important thing now is only the kid. He is in good hands. We have very good physios here with experience of cruciate ligaments. The kid will be like new, for sure.

‘Ramires is selected for the squad tomorrow because I hope he can play, but the recovery process is going slowly, he didn’t train with the team. We are doing everything for him to play.’

Juan Mata has seen his place in the Chelsea side come under threat this season with question marks made against the playmakers work-rate off the ball. However, he put in an excellent display against Swindon in midweek and Mourinho confirmed the improved attitude from the Spaniard is likely to put him in his first team thoughts on a more regular basis.

Mourinho continued:

‘He [Mata] can be the matchwinner. I liked [his performance at Swindon]. We are speaking, with all the respect, about a team who is two divisions below us, but it doesn’t matter who you play against. His attitude was very, very good. He made a big effort to come in my direction, so when a player makes a big effort to come in my direction the only thing I can do is to go in his direction too.

‘The last match against Fulham he was not selected and I can imagine that from now, if he keeps working that way and adapting to my way of thinking, the football that I want him to play, the natural tendency is the opposite one, to be in the team.’

Chelsea are just two points behind Spurs heading into this weekends round of fixtures so they will be looking for three points to overhaul their London rivals and go top of the Premier League ahead of Arsenal’s trip to Swansea.

You can see Andre Villas-Boas’s Tottenham team news here, and our predicted line-ups for the game here.

Now we’ve seen the Chelsea team news, what would be your preferred starting line-up?