Chelsea
Chelsea Team News: Mourinho Confirms Quadruple Injury Blow Including Costa Latest
Here is a team news and injury update where Jose Mourinho confirms that Diego Costa, Ramires, John Obi Mikel and Andre Schurrle will miss the Maribor game.
Chelsea will look to take another step closer to securing qualification to the knockout stages of the Champions League when they take on Maribor on Tuesday night.
Ahead of the game, Jose Mourinho has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference this afternoon and gave Chelseafc.com a team news and injury update where he confirmed a quadruple injury blow.
The Portuguese coach revealed that Ramires and Andre Schurrle are both set to miss tomorrow’s game, despite taking part in training at Cobham this morning.
Ramires hasn’t featured since picking up a a muscle injury during Chelsea’s 1-1 draw at Manchester City last month and is still not considered fit enough to be in contention just yet.
Schurrle missed Saturday’s win over Crystal Palace with flu that also saw him miss Germany’s Euro 2016 qualifying draw with Ireland, and while he was out on the training pitch this morning, it seems Tuesday’s clash comes too soon.
There is further bad news with Mourinho also telling ChelseaFC.com that midfielder John Obi Mikel has been ruled out with a foot injury that he sustained while away with Nigeria last week.
The Blues boss also confirmed to reporters that Diego Costa is set for a spell on the sidelines as his troublesome hamstring problem has now developed into a proper injury, although Mourinho refused to set a time-frame on the strikers return.
“It’s the same problem that he’s [Costa] having, but now an injury, not an almost injury,”
“It’s simple. He’s not training because he’s not in condition to do it.
“Tomorrow he cannot play. Let’s see what happens for next weekend, but next weekend is not important.
“I don’t have Manchester United (on Sunday in the Premier League) in mind. I have Maribor in mind.” Mourinho is quoted as saying by the Guardian
With Costa ruled out, youngster Dominic Solanke was named in the Chelsea squad for the first time on Saturday and is expected to be involved against Maribor, and he should be joined by Didier Drogba on the bench after the Ivorian made his comeback with a late subs appearance at the weekend.
