So far so good on the injury front for Chelsea as Eden Hazard, John Obi Mikel and club captain John Terry travelled as part of the 25-man squad to take on Benfica in the Europa League final in Amsterdam tomorrow night.
Terry (ankle) and Hazard (hamstring) were injury casualties during the 2-1 win over Aston Villa at Villa Park on Saturday whilst Mikel has not played in the last four matches as he had been suffering with a hip problem.
The captain unfortunately missed out on last season’s Champions League final after he was sent off against Barcelona in the semis and he’ll hope to play a part tomorrow night, but David Luiz, Branislav Ivanovic and Gary Cahill have been the preferred choices for most of our big games since Rafa Benitez arrived and Frank Lampard will likely skipper the Blues at the Amsterdam Arena.
Oriol Romeu represents a sight for sore eyes as he hasn’t featured since December but was on the flight along with Nathan Ake and Ryan Bertrand, who recently recovered from a knee problem.
So it seems as though Demba Ba is our only absolute unavailable option as he cannot play in the Europa League having already featured for Newcastle United earlier in the competition.
Fingers crossed that the next news that we get on the likes of Hazard and Terry is good news as they face the agony of potentially missing out on a European final.
Fingers certainly crossed but sadly, I feel its more a case that having them there is for their support, to allow them to join the celebs if we win as we wouldn’t be there without them and they no doubt want to be there personally anyway; no surprise therefore that they’ve travelled. The best I think we could hope for is a place on the bench to get a cameo if we’re ahead. KTBFFH
It seems as though the news is likely to be bad. But as you say, at least they’re there to support the lads.