They were already all but resigned to having Terry and Ballack miss the first 4 weeks of the season, but now there are doubts over Drogba, Robben (who may well have moved on by the time the game comes round anyway), Shevchenko, Makelele, Kalou, Johnson, Ferreira for their opening weekend fixture against Birmingham. In addition, Lampard's currently apparently playing with a broken toe, Cech has a hand injury, and Malouda suffered a dead leg in the Community Shield.
Put them all together, and it's roughly the equivalent of us having to field a team without Carragher, Gerrard, Kuyt, Kewell, Torres, Alonso, Crouch, Riise, Finnan, Mascherano, Reina and Pennant. Whether they all recover sufficiently to play a week on Sunday (Aug 19th) or not, missing training at this stage is a huge blow to them, and so long as we can get through the next week and a half with minimal damage to our own personnel, I'd say we look like fairly heavy favourites right now.
are chelsea??
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