Chelsea’s attack has been ravaged by injuries as they aim to avoid a seventh successive league loss which would equal a 74-year-old club record.
Before travelling to Liverpool for Saturday’s lunchtime kick-off, both Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho are struggling with ‘knocks’, according to interim manager Calum McFarlane, though they have also been described to us as muscle-related issues.
Jesse Derry, their 18-year-old academy talent, is sidelined after suffering his horrific head injury in what was his first senior start against Nottingham Forest on Monday.
Other attackers absent include Jamie Gittens and Estevao Willian, while Mykhailo Mudryk remains suspended, and goalkeeper Robert Sanchez will also miss the trip to Liverpool after he clashed heads with Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White.
The only bonus for McFarlane is that Reece James and Levi Colwill are both training fully at Cobham, though it is not clear whether either will be passed fit enough to start.
Only once in their history have Chelsea ever lost seven games in a row – in November and December 1952. McFarlane was asked at his pre-Liverpool press conference whether those who have been playing for Chelsea have ‘downed tools’ amid their losing run.
Chelsea have been hit with an attacking injury crisis as they seek to avoid breaking a 74-year record against Liverpool
McFarlane responded: ‘No, I wouldn’t agree with that. The performances haven’t been good enough. We’re in a really bad run. The Leeds performance (in the FA Cup’s semi-finals) was a glimmer where we thought we could build on that and we weren’t able to do that.
‘But I do see these boys every day, every training session, every meeting, in the gym. They are in a good place to go and attack games. We just haven’t been able to translate that to the game on Monday, so hopefully we can improve that on Saturday.’
It was put to McFarlane that Jamie Carragher had described Chelsea as ‘broken’ during his punditry work on Sky Sports. The temporary Blues boss said: ‘It’s Jamie’s job, he’s a pundit, he’s got to give his opinion and I respect that. That’s his job and it’s what he’s there to do.
‘I can only speak on my experience at this club and I think that there’s a lot of foundations for this team to have success. We’re not in the best form at the moment. We’re not performing the way we should be, but I do think there are foundations there for this team to be successful.
‘We’ve got four games left. We need to attack every game and show our level like we have done at times this year, not recently, and put ourselves in the best position to achieve that.’
