Guus Hiddink is hopeful that defender Alex and midfielder Michael Essien will be fit for Chelsea's Champions League semi-final return leg against Barcelona on Wednesday.
The duo were withdrawn at half-time in Saturday's 3-1 win over Fulham but Hiddink is confident they will feature at Stamford Bridge.
"Alex had a slight problem with his groin but I think he will be okay," Hiddink continued. "We also wanted to protect Michael and that is why we made the change.
"We wanted to take the game in the league between our matches against Barcelona very seriously but hopefully we can be in two finals at the end of May - that would be perfect."
Hiddink was pleased to see Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba produce some fine link-up play against Fulham but refused to say whether the pair would both be involved against the Catalans on Wednesday.
"It gives us more options," said Hiddink. "If you are a central defender, you wouldn't want to face them, they are strong and fast but we didn't just choose this game, we play them together in practice as well."
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chelsea aint defending this time, it is all attack
to all barca fans out there i want u all to relax we will teach chelsea how to play football on wednesday,they were only lucky last week.we use madrid as a warning to them.by the power of God of soccer it will end 3-1 in favour of the catalans.
All for chelsea my prayee is that we defit barc on wednesday from samuel ogboi nigera up blues the almight chelsea
Barcelona seem to be a lot of mouth and little action. I think they committed something around 20 fouls and had three yellows against Real this weekend, the game they won 6-2. Considering Liverpool beat Real 4-0 and Liverpool were put out of the CL by Chelsea it puts things in perspective. Barcelona are just peeved because Chelsea did not let them play their game so they could "show off". But then again, is that not the key to victory? Don't let the other team play their game, make them play your game!
Anyway, talk is cheap- we shall see this week who goes through or not.
blues.....we kn du this,,,,,,,up blues
Dear Titus N,
I have written a poem for you. Here it goes:)
Titus N you are my man
Everything you say I ban
Cos you are not from my clan
Your Barca is built on sand
Are you sure Barca can ?
Last nite, a gypsy from Barcelona gazed into her crystal ball and saw a fearful vision.
I asked What Happened ?
Under a bridge a ball was passed to guy called Malouda
It went from there to the legs of Anelka
From there it went to Drogba
Who shot it between the legs of Guardiola
Into the goal of Barcelona.
I asked the gypsy: And what did you see happened at the other end?
"A ball reaches the legs of Xavi
And quickly it went to Henry
He passed it to Messi
Who crashed into a bus called Terry
And that was the end of the story"
Cheers,
May the best team wins !
Yours Truly,
TITUS N, or just TIT for short.
Watch and learn on Wednesday night Barca! You'll be up against a Premiership side not your usual Spanish second rate league teams.
Chelsea is GOING DOWN.. Barca will slaughter you chelsea
Sounds like your in need of an education
your only option is samefull defens tactic with a lot of fauls and punching ball in the air and hoping that ref will let you play that way.and you gona be defeted anyway!!!
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