When we lost Didier Drogba to his fateful knee surgery, we were worried how Shevchenko and Pizarro would make up for his absence. To be in a position to worry about their performance is such a luxury because they both may not be available for the Blackburn match on Sunday. Sheva is still nursing his ankle while Pizarro has not fully recovered from flu.

I’m not sure if the possible absence of Sheva and Pizarro for this match would impact Avram much. He seems to have settled with his 4-3-3, bordering on 4-5-1, with a sole striker upfront. Kalou can play that role. Selecting the players for the wingers’ roles could have been awfully difficult for Avram but for Joe Cole’s fine performance against Liverpool. Malouda is still unavailable for the Sunday match. Wonder what’s happened to him after talks of him being ready for the Liverpool match. If Malouda is unavailable, SWP is terribly out of form and Kalou needs to be sole striker, Sinclair would very well make another appearance. I’d put Joe Cole on the right wing and Sinclair on the left to see how it goes. With the current set of players, 4-4-1-1 would also suit nicely but I don’t see Avram ditching 4-3-3.

We have a strong midfield now comprising of Essien, Ballack and Lampard. These three players should make a wonderful combination in the midfield as they complement each other in many ways. I’d prefer to see Lampard supporting the lone striker while Essien playing as an attack-minded midfielder with Ballack as the prime playmaker. Terry’s absence should not mean too much as the back four are settling down nicely. By the way, I saw John Terry walking with artificial support, in the stands at the Stamford Bridge during the Liverpool match. It was such a sickening sight you know! Eboue, who I thought paid the price thanks to football karma, is back and ready for selection for Arsenal. I still believe in football karma. Let’s see how it treats Eboue going forward.

Ok, this midfield means Mikel has no place but that’s fine. Let’s give that kid a break. Anyway he does not seem to be fully fit. He can always come in during the second half to steady the ship or rock the opponent’s boat. It’s such a shame that we are still talking about Mikel-Crouch affair but Crouch said some stupid things that cannot be left unresponded. Avram Grant gives one back to Peter Crouch. I hope people like Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso, Jose Reina, Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun etc have read this comment from Avram:

If Peter Crouch did not do what everybody saw he did, John Mikel Obi would not have been in this position. He could not continue and you remember I subbed him after five more minutes. I hear Peter Crouch is a nice guy. He needs to look at himself, see what is wrong, look forward and that’s all, not to find any other excuse. I can only think he spoke about the players that play with his team, so he knows them very closely – the foreigners who play for his team. I don’t think he knows much about other foreign players. We will know tomorrow if Mikel is fit. He trained today but not 100 per cent so we will see.

Take that Peter ‘English’ Crouch! And what’s going wrong in Liverpool? First, it was captain Steven Gerrard speaking out the need for quota system for English players in premier league teams, without even bothering about how his comments would be taken by his team mates. Now, Peter Crouch talking about the evils that foreigners bring to the otherwise pure and sacred English football. May be, by the term ‘foreigners’, he was referring to Tom Hicks or George Gillett?

Blackburn are in poor form and given their troubles with injury and form, it should be three points for us without a doubt. Benni McCarthy is unable to get back the form of 2006-07 season but Santa Cruz has filled in for him. Irrespective what happens from Blackburn’s side, we have no excuse to drop points this match especially after Arsenal got fortunate against the Spurs. I love the Chelsea-Blackburn battles. Always intense, physical and quite daring. I’d predict a 2-0 for Chelsea – Lampard to score his 100th Chelsea goal and Kalou scoring the other. Before I finish, I’m now a proud owner of Sony Vaio notebook. It’s faster, more stylish but more importantly very powerful. You’ll start to see how this would benefit this blog. Goodbye!