COLE RULED OUT

Ashley Cole will not be able to play for Chelsea for the next couple of weeks because of a hamstring injury that he discovered while playing in the FA Cup quarter final match against Manchester United which was played on Monday at Stamford Bridge.

Cole left the ground in the 21st minute of the match. He will sit on the sidelines in the Europa League match against Rubin Kazan and in the Premier League match against Sunderland. He might also miss the FA cup final 4 match against Manchester City. That match will be played on 14th of April and Cole’s chances of getting fit till then are not great.

However, despite losing Cole so early, the Blues put up a fine performance against United. They won that match by 1-0. The only goal in the match was scored by Demba Ba.

Talking to the reporters after the match against United, the Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez said, “Ashley has injured his hamstring and he will be out for at least 15 days. We were already without Gary Cahill and now, Ashley’s injury has weakened our defense even more.”

Because of his injury, Gary Cahill had not played for his national side England in the two world cup qualifying matches in March and he was not a part of the Blues squad for the previous game against Southampton FC which Chelsea had lost by 1-2. According to Benitez, Cahill needs a couple of more weeks to recover completely.

When asked about the performance of his team against Manchester United, Benitez said, “We were superb today. A couple of our key players were not playing and the opposition was very strong. But, we didn’t get nervous and pulled it off. I am really satisfied with the effort of the boys.”