Spanish duo Juan Mata and Fernando Torres will be available for selection despite the former suffering a broken finger and the latter missing yesterday’s training session through illness.
Chelsea have been woeful this season but hopefully this game could be the beginning of a turning point for us as we have an excellent record against Bolton. We have not lost to the Trotters since 2003.
The team I’d choose today:
P. Cech
B. Ivanovic – G. Cahill – D. Luiz – R. Bertrand
M. Essien – O. Romeu
J. Mata
Ramires – D. Sturridge – F. Malouda
Both Torres and Didier Drogba have been worse than useless in front of goal this season and the only reason Daniel Sturridge hasn’t been given many chances in a more central position is because we lack adequate cover for him in the wide areas. But I don’t think it would hurt to play Ramires on the right as he had done earlier in the season and experiment with our misfiring forward line.
We’ve also suffered from a lack of creativity and I think keeping Mata central is the way to go and a combination of Michael Essien and Oriol Romeu are probably a lot more capable of defending our leaky defence than Ramires/Raul Meireles.
A lot was made about Cole’s omission in midweek but too many of the press hacks and Sky’s pundits quickly forgot that the England left-back has only just returned from an injury, has played a lot of football this season and hasn’t played at all well either. He didn’t look interested for the majority of the time he was on the pitch against Napoli and a goal-line clearance doesn’t excuse that. He needs competition, not from the hapless Bosingwa but from Ryan Bertrand, who can actually cross a ball.
Who’d be in your Chelsea XI v Bolton today?