If the answer is yes, it would be a shame! I want to start this discussion by looking at what this monster of ACN means for us. The fact is that we are talking about 5 premiership games, that’s it. Three of them are home matches. Here is the list – Tottenham (H), Birmingham (A), Reading (H), Portsmouth (A) and Liverpool (H). And there could be champions league matches as well.

Generally, missing couple of key players for a period of four weeks, especially by Chelsea’s recent standards, is something normal. We have managed absences before. With the worst of injury crisis, we ended at No.2 with just 6 points difference and stayed in all competitions as on the beginning of May. We didn’t have enough quality back ups then in defence and also at goal.

Now, Drogba, Essien, Mikel and Kalou would be out for a period of 4 – 5 weeks. In my view, it’s more difficult to replace Essien/Mikel than Drogba/Kalou. I know, with Drogba/Kalou, we’re talking about nearly one-third of our goals scored this season. After all, we have Shevchenko and Pizarro to back up. Both of them are established players and have been here long enough to have got the hang of it. I see that one of them or even both them can get injured during that time to make things worse.

If that’s the worry then we should be getting some decent strikers on loan and not buying them. My problem with buying them is that we might have to offload a couple of them in May or later. With Roman determined to see Shevchenko retire at Chelsea, I don’t want the axe to fall on Kalou. He is a good young prospect who is thrown at the highest degree of football so early. He would improve with time. He has the qualities of a legendary striker.

We should start using Shevchenko and Pizarro as soon as possible. They should be match fit and have good match practice and confidence by the time they become the primary strike force in Jan and Feb. See, we have the match against Derby this weekend. I’m gonna scream is I see a 4-3-3 with Drogba as the centre forward. This is the perfect opportunity to play 4-4-2 with Sheva and Pizarro.

Hoping that at least one of them would always be available, I should say that we should not buy players rather we can get someone on loan. In Shevchenko and Pizarro, we have players with some incredible goal scoring records. What would they be thinking if the club goes and buys more strikers because Drogba an Kalou are out for few weeks. They’d know that we played a full strength Man Utd in the community shield match without any striker in the starting line-up and still did not lose in full time plus extra time. So it’s certainly manageable for a short period of time but cannot be sustained for too long.

Finally, it all boils down to Avram’s trust on Sheva and Pizarro, and how efficiently he can use them. If Avram is not going to use Shev/Pizarro in this situation, there is no point in having them any longer. He should get rid of them and buy new strikers of his choice. In a few weeks time, every striker on earth would be linked with Chelsea. If Avram has plans of using only Sheva/Pizarro, he should come and convey that clearly so that these guys don’t have follow the rumours with butterflies in their stomach.

What’s your take on what we need to do about the striker situation in Jan and Feb?