Chelsea will head to the Etihad Stadium this weekend to take on Manchester City and currently, Frank Lampard is under all sorts of pressure due to the long injury list.
Already, nine players are out injured and neither of them will be fit for the trip to Manchester. If this was not chaos enough then the interim manager has told the press that Badiashile is the latest addition to this ill-fated list.
The centre-back has picked up a knock in training and he will not be available for selection this weekend.
Lampard told the press on Friday: ‘Injury-wise, we’re pretty much similar to where we have been recently, in terms of Mason, Reece, Chilly, N’Golo and Marc Cucurella are not fit.
‘Koulibaly has been training with us over the last week but is probably not really ready for a game like this, but he is ahead of schedule to be fair.
‘Benoit injured himself in training two days ago, his groin, and will miss the game. We’re assessing that now as we speak.’
This is a major headache for the Chelsea manager because he already has a full-back crisis and now with this fresh injury, Lampard will also have a centre-back problem.
Thiago Silva will be the one central defender and since both Koulibaly and Badiashile are missing, Chalobah will now have to partner with the experienced Brazilian.
This might not look like a big point of discussion but in the absence of Reece James, Chalobah has been playing as the right-back however this weekend, Azpilicueta will have to play on the right-hand side and the ageing full-back will come up with either Phil Foden or Jack Grealish.
Both these Manchester City wingers are at the peak of their powers and there’s a big possibility that they will tear Azpi to shreds.
Also, Kante and Mateo Kovacic are not expected to be fit anytime soon and because Mason Mount is also out injured, the Chelsea boss will have to rely on Gallagher and Loftus-Cheek to marshal the middle of the pitch. Neither of them has the calibre to dominate and outmuscle players like Rodri or Gundogan so Chelsea are probably staring down at a really bad defeat on Sunday.
