Chelsea will reportedly be without a string of key first-team players as they face Ajax in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
The Blues sit in third place in Group H ahead of kick-off, level on points with Valencia but three adrift of leaders Ajax, who they now face in back-to-back encounters.
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In turn, they’ll be desperate for a positive result this week, but time will tell if they can manage to attain one even with a number of important absentees.
As noted by the Guardian, Ross Barkley, N’Golo Kante, Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rudiger are all expected to miss out due to ankle, groin, hamstring and groin problems respectively.
While the injury problems didn’t seem to bother Frank Lampard too much at the weekend in their 1-0 win over Newcastle United, the Chelsea boss will know the importance of having a full-strength squad available at this stage for such important games.
Particularly given the quality, experience and depth that the individuals in question bring to the table, they will certainly be a big miss for the Blues as they look for a positive result.
Lampard will hope that the players in question can perhaps be in contention for the clash with Burnley on Saturday evening, although based on the report above it sounds as though Christensen is most definitely set to miss out again.
Time will tell if the other trio can avoid a similar fate and show enough in training in the back-end of the week to warrant a spot in Lampard’s plans ahead of the weekend.
