Cole Palmer and Reece James were amongst Chelsea’s absentees as they were beaten by Arsenal in the primary leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.
Also missing out on the London derby were the likes of Malo Gusto, Liam Delap and Jamie Gittens, who were all believed to be in contention to play.
Moises Caicedo also didn’t feature, but that was expected because the midfielder was suspended.
With a lot of their best players out, the Blues were downed 3-2 in west London, giving Arsenal the advantage ahead of the second leg, but keeping Liam Rosenior’s side within the tie.
Ben White, Viktor Gyokeres and Martin Zubimendi scored the goals for the Gunners while an Alejandro Garnacho double lifted spirits at Stamford Bridge.
Rosenior hopes to have a few of the absent players back by the weekend, with Chelsea hosting Brentford at 3pm on Saturday within the Premier League.
‘Cole, the sport got here too early for him. Hopefully he’ll give you the option to coach on Friday,’ Rosenior told a post-match press conference. ‘He had a minor strain on his thigh.
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‘Reece had an enormous knock on his hip, it was too sore for him today. Jamie was sick last night, Delap was attributable to play today and felt sick 4 hours before the sport. Malo Gusto was sick. Moises Caicedo was suspended.
‘I need to maintain the sick players away from the group so it doesn’t spread. Each of them had dangerously high temperatures. Hopefully they will be rested and be wonderful for Saturday.’
Ahead of the meeting with Arsenal, the brand new Blues boss said: ‘We’ve passed through the wars during the last couple of games, but at the identical time, I still think we have now good enough to be competitive and win this game today.’
It’s a really busy time of 12 months for the Blues and Rosenior spoke earlier within the week of specifically managing Palmer through his fitness issues.
‘I’ve had a very good in-depth conversation with Cole today,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a very good in-depth conversation with the medical team. We’re at a stage of the season where we’ve got one other eight games in three weeks.
‘So it might be crazy for me to risk any player on this phase of the season.
‘I’ve got real faith on this group they usually showed that. I made, I feel, eight changes (at Charlton), and we had a superb performance. I’ll make more changes for Wednesday, I’ll make more changes for Saturday.
‘But to risk a player’s health in January is a crazy thing to do if you could have the ambition that you desire to be strong at the top of the season.’
‘I’m asking Rob to do things he hasn’t done before’
Rosenior can have a selection to make about who he’ll play in goal going forward after Robert Sanchez had a really difficult evening against the Premier League leaders.
The previous Brighton stopper flapped at a cross which led to Ben White’s opener, while he made a terrible mess of a low cross which presented the ball to Gyokeres to attain the second.
Defending his goalkeeper, Rosenior said: ‘I feel the primary goal was disappointing. That’s a team goal, that’s not on Rob. I’m asking Rob to do things he hasn’t done before.
‘When my players make mistakes, I’m accountable. He made a save within the second-half that was absolutely world-class. That might have put us out of the tie.’
Pushed on what he’s asking Sanchez to do, he said: ‘Without going into an excessive amount of detail, because I don’t want other teams to know, there are specific triggers, certain patterns.’
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