Chelsea struck by five-man injury crisis for Liverpool as Calum McFarlane disagreement revealed

Chelsea are without five wingers for this weekend’s trip to Liverpool with interim head coach Calum McFarlane facing a big dilemma at Anfield

Chelsea have been brutally struck by a plague of injuries, with interim head coach Calum McFarlane having no natural wingers fit for this weekend’s trip to Liverpool.

Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho are set to miss the visit to Anfield with muscular-related knocks, while Jamie Gittens and Estevao Willian are out with hamstring injuries. Jesse Derry is also unavailable this weekend after being stretchered off with a head injury on his Premier League debut against Nottingham Forest on Monday afternoon.

Cole Palmer is fit and has played on the right wing this season, but there is a severe lack of options on the opposite flank. McFarlane, whose side are on a six-match losing run in the Premier League, will look to utilise a slightly unorthodox attacking setup in Liverpool on Saturday afternoon.

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“We’ve still got a lot of good players, still got a lot of players available that can impact football games,” said McFarlane on a lack of options in wide areas. “So, we’re going to have to make up some of the players we’re missing in different ways, in the way that we shape the team up, but I probably don’t want to go into too much detail on that right now.”

Chelsea are looking for their first league win in more than two months on Saturday afternoon and McFarlane has rubbished suggestions of his squad ‘downing tools’ at this crucial part of the season.

He said: “No, I wouldn’t agree with that. The performances haven’t been good enough, we’re on a really bad run at the moment.

“I see these boys every day, every training session, every meeting, in the gym, they are in a good place to go and attack games.”