[Guardian.co.uk] There was more bad news for Jose Mourinho yesterday after reports from France suggested Didier Drogba's knee injury is likely to rule him out for two weeks, which means he could miss Chelsea's crucial early season game with Liverpool. The Chelsea manager's difficulties do not end there. He must also make a tough decision about Andriy Shevchenko. The Ukrainian trained last week despite having a slight back strain and was expecting to be part of the squad against Manchester United in the Community Shield. Mourinho erred on the side of caution, however, mindful that Salomon Kalou was among those in the treatment room, with a shoulder injury, and his other striker, Claudio Pizarro, the new signing from Bayern Munich, lacked match fitness.
Shevchenko took part in full training yesterday and is determined to play a full part against Birmingham City at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. The £30m signing from Milan struggled to justify his superstar billing last season and fell out with Mourinho at the time of the Champions League semi-final second-leg at Liverpool, when he was left out of the starting line-up and did not make the bench, after he felt an injury. Drogba's injury is the one which will be worrying Mourinho most, however. The Ivorian was his top scorer last season with 33 goals and offers the team its focal point. Drogba damaged the knee in training on Saturday and there are fears that he will miss not only the opening games of the season against Birmingham and Reading away next Tuesday but also the visit to Liverpool the following Saturday. With John Terry, the captain, already ruled out for four weeks with a knee ligament injury, he can ill afford to be without another of the team's leaders.
Shevchenko's adviser, Fabio Parisi, said: «It's a small problem, and it's not something that has suddenly happened. His back is tired, it's been a gradual thing. Jose Mourinho did not want to take the risk [in the Community Shield]». Shevchenko played in Chelsea's three friendlies on their tour of the United States and there has been concern that the hard pitches there contributed to his injury. He then appeared against Feyenoord and Rangers but did not travel to Denmark for the Brondby friendly last week. Milan's president, Silvio Berlusconi, would like to take Shevchenko back and the Italian club are exploring the possibility of a loan but Chelsea refuse to do business. Mourinho hopes to have Kalou back for Sunday but Wayne Bridge, Michael Ballack and Claude Makelele are out.
07 agosto, 2007
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EVOLUTION, KEY TO MOTIVATING TEAM
08 August 2007
Jose Mourinho may have the Premiership's most critical injury list but the Chelsea manager still believes his own powers of motivation will be integral to his club's success this season. The man whose new creed of "mellow" thinking is being strained by a squad that has around 14 walking wounded or long-term injuries said that his biggest challenge will be keeping his players challenged.
The season starts for Mourinho on Sunday against Birmingham City without captain John Terry or last season's top goalscorer Didier Drogba, and Frank Lampard playing despite a broken toe. But Mourinho said that the greatest challenge facing any manager was ensuring that they could still motivate their players. "I think it's true for bad managers – not true for the good ones," he told Chelsea TV. "Arsene Wenger is a good one, [Sir Alex] Ferguson is a good one, I am a good one and I think for us it is not difficult. This is because we have evolution in our work.
"If we worked the same way and there was no evolution in the exercises, no evolution in the methodology, I think it would be difficult. Your speech doesn't get through to the group. But when you bring new things into every aspect of your work it is an better challenge. I would never lose my philosophy but the way we present things to the players are in permanent evolution so I must disagree with the people who say it is more difficult [to motivate players]."
Arjen Robben and Florent Malouda, who picked up an injury in Sunday's Community Shield game against Manchester United, should both be fit to play against Birmingham on Sunday. Ashley Cole has an ankle injury which meant he was not completely fit against United but he should also be fit. However, for Michael Ballack and Andrei Shevchenko there is no firm date set for a return.
It could well play havoc with Mourinho's intention to pick a side which is in keeping with his new plan to attack with wingers, either in a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 formation. "For me the game in between lines is very important," he said. "When you play with only two lines I don't think you use the space well and I think that is what we're working with.
"It's looking to win the game but if you can win the game playing different football, it's better and if the team is ready to play with different philosophies adapted to the reality, adapted to the moment, we have to do it too. Some matches we will have to be a 'result team'. If you tell me that in the sixth game of the Champions League group phase we need a draw to go to the next stage, we have to play for the result we need."
da: sport.independent.co.uk
DORGBA'S EARLY ABSENCE COULD WRECK BLUES START,10th August 2007
Claudio Pizarro is the new boy this summer. He is a Peru international who established himself in Germany and has looked reasonable in pre-season despite joining training late and having a slight back problem. However, Mourinho signed him as a support striker and he does not expect to be a prolific scorer.
Salomon Kalou, at 22 years old, is a youngster who showed signs of promise in his first season after joining from Feyenoord last summer. He was not prolific though or a regular starter and Mourinho has made it clear he sees him as a wide option.
Which leaves the Portuguese with the enigmatic Andriy Shevchenko. After a summer in which the Ukrainian was deprived of a move back to AC Milan by the Italians' reluctance to pay anything like the £30.8m they charged Chelsea for him a year ago, expectations have not been raised.
His pre-season was unspectacular and despite returning to training following a minor back problem, he was left out of the Community Shield squad last weekend. Mourinho chose to play without a recognised striker until early in the second half and there has been no sign that his opinion of the Ukrainian has improved.
Shevchenko's body language in preseason has not been positive either but Martin Laursen, who was at Milan with the striker, is convinced he will give everything to succeed at Chelsea. The defender said: "He was a top striker, the biggest star in one of the biggest clubs in the world and that says a lot. He isn't happy when he doesn't perform well. He is well aware that he earns a lot of money and there are a lot of expectations of him. He wants to give something back. I trained with him for three years and played against him for Verona and for Aston Villa [Laursen's current club]. He is a very hard worker and it is not like he throws in the towel. He has had a hard time in England. He hasn't done well yet but I can only say he is a good player who has scored a lot of goals in a league which is among the toughest to score in.
I don't know if he has lost pace. It could be because he has not settled in so well in England. He couldn't speak English when he came and that is a problem. You take that on to the pitch and you don't feel comfortable. It affects you as a player if you are not really happy in the country you live in".
Beyond Shevchenko, Mourinho would have to look again at Joe Cole or Malouda, the pair who shouldered most of the attacking burden responsibility against United at Wembley.
da: www.dailymail.co.uk
JOSE MOURINHO'S CHELSEA CHARM OFFENSIVE, 09/08/2007
Jose Mourinho crystallised Chelsea's change of philosophy this summer when, on a break from pre-season training in Los Angeles, he explained: "Beauty is a controversial concept in football. But for me, it has a lot to do with having control". The manager was exploring that vexed question of how Chelsea could defy their detractors by playing with more energy and elan. How could they be bold, and yet beautiful? Mourinho acknowledges that as a consequence of last season's injury traumas, his side lost their claim to flair, their ponderous build-up play and over-reliance on Didier Drogba never more glaringly exposed than in the Champions League defeat to Liverpool. Remind Mourinho of that result and you are always assailed by an outpouring of regret. To enhance the aesthetics, Mourinho promises to impose a fundamentally different approach this season, calling far more upon his wingers. Florent Malouda, whose elusive running has proved so penetrating for Lyon and France, appears an inspired choice in light of his flamboyant debut against Club America in San Francisco and more extravagant tricks in the Community Shield. Chelsea aficionados well recall the dynamism Mourinho injected into the club in his first season, allowing Arjen Robben and Damien Duff to make terrifying charges on the flanks. Increasingly, he looks for the essence of the winger's craft in a resurgent Joe Cole, and even the young Scott Sinclair, with Robben seemingly bound for Real Madrid now that Malouda has leapt to the top of the pecking order. Mourinho, as he has made clear, draws scant pleasure from "parking the bus" in front of goal while his strikers, listless and under-used, are marked out of the game. Chelsea's defence is so well-drilled that the rest of the team can risk more creative enterprise. "I want more," he argued. "It's good for the club that we play differently. Against a big team like ours, the tendency is for our opponents to close down, so our tendency must be to open. With the quality of wingers here, we have to use them."
Quite simply, Chelsea are learning how to have fun again. Mourinho might reassert his conviction that he has led the best team for the past three years, but a peculiar joylessness has pervaded the club, with a commitment to results at all costs blocking their route to broader public affection. Mourinho has been the charismatic apologist for some colourless football, and his greatest imperative is to model a side more in his own image. Intriguingly, Andrei Shevchenko, whose slight return on a £30 million move has rendered him a popular target for the polemicists, could assume a pivotal role in this quiet revolution. As a central striker, he has been leaden in the legs, but Mourinho concedes his prolific record is not easily disregarded and intends to use him out wide opposite the equally mercurial Claudio Pizarro, supporting Drogba in a 4-3-3 system. Shevchenko, more than any other figure in this expansive set-up, is encouraged to shed his inhibitions and operate more on instinct. Mourinho wants his players to understand the "fragility" of every formation, but he favours the neutral's dream of a 4-3-3, or a 4-4-2 with orthodox wingers as an alternative. At a stroke, he has stepped back from his stubborn attitude last season, when he contrived every means to build around the cumbersome axis of Shevchenko and Michael Ballack. Under the revised plan, Shaun Wright-Phillips could be another to muscle in from the margins after his manager said he was the sharpest performer in Chelsea's pre-season travels.
da: www.telegraph.co.uk
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