Chelsea Team News – Terry, Lampard & Anelka All Out?

Chelsea embark on their latest European adventure tonight when they take on Bayer Leverkusen at Stamford Bridge in their Champions League Group E fixture. Manager Andre Villas-Boas is planning to shuffle his team around and rest certain players as they travel to play Manchester United at the weekend.

Chelsea will already be without Didier Drogba through injury and Ramires who is suspended, and if boss Villas-Boas is true to his word John Terry, Frank Lampard and Nicolas Anelka will all be missing too.

AVB said in his latest press conference, “You will see some changes to the team against Leverkusen and we will make some wise decisions for Sunday. It is very tight. Most of the players were away with their countries last week, we played at Sunderland on Saturday and now we have this European match.”

AVB also said, “We have only four days to recover for Old Trafford and this has to play a part in my team selection. Hopefully we will make the right choices to win this game and the players will also be up to the level on Sunday.”

Some Chelsea fans have been crying out for the likes for Lampard and Anelka to be dropped from the team, let alone be rested, but this is a game where three points are needed to get the campaign off to a good start.

It will be interesting to see who plays tonight and who does not. If Chelsea ‘rest’ players and do not get the right result manager Andre Villas-Boas will come in for plenty of criticism, but if a younger side win without the likes of Terry, Lampard and Anelka it could just be the making of him.