Chelsea's pre-season worries escalated this afternoon when it was announced that Captain John Terry and last season's Premiership top goal scorer Didier Drogba were out of the Community Shield match against Man Utd.
Also missing was Claude Makelele who like Terry pulled out of Saturday's training session. It is expected that JT will be unavailable for four weeks, but the situation regarding Makelele and Drogba is not so clear. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Drogba will be having a scan of somesort this week and with Makelele - who knows?
Not a great start to the 2007/08 season and the Community Shield and the end of the Community Shield was even more disastrous for Chelsea as they went down 3-0 in penalty kicks after Pizarro, Lampard and Shaunie had their kicks saved by Edwin Van Der Saar.
Chelsea's starting XI had an unfamiliar look to its forward line as Jose opted for 4-3-3. Joe Cole, Wright-Phillips and Malouda were the personnel responsible to try and get the goals that would bring the Community Shield home to Stamford Bridge for the second time in as many years.
The midfield three included Lampard (who was Captain for the day), Essien and Mikel and the back four had Johnson, Carvlaho, Ben-Haim and A Cole.
It was Man Utd who took the lead when Ryan Giggs swept home an Evra cross after good work by the same down on Utd's right and Chelsea's left. With just seconds remaing of the first-half, Ashley Cole chipped an exquisite ball with the outside of his left-foot and new signing £13.5m man, Florent Malouda chased down and turned Ferdinand inside out before slotting the ball home past Van Der Saar. Malouda got injured for his troubles and only lasted a few minutes when the second-half resumed.
In baking hot conditions, it is reported that the pitch temperature reached 100 degrees all the players deserve the credit for trying to produce a match worthy of Wembley and better than the FA Cup Final played only 78 days ago.
They did both and all fairness Utd created the better chances, but Chelsea created a few of their own too!
In addition to the above players missing - there was no Shevchenko, no Ballack, no Robben, no Kalou and two of Chelsea's substitutes included two goalkeepers in Cudicini and Hilario.
I have said before that the result of this game wouldn't bother me, but I have to admit I am alarmed at our current injury 'crisis' and more worringly we have players on many many thousands of £££££££££s per week who can't seem to score from twelve yards - especially in front of their own fans.
KTBFFH