{"id":5791,"date":"2026-05-08T09:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T09:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=5791"},"modified":"2026-05-08T09:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T09:04:13","slug":"chelsea-struck-by-five-man-injury-crisis-for-liverpool-as-calum-mcfarlane-disagreement-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=5791","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea struck by five-man injury crisis for Liverpool as Calum McFarlane disagreement revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<h2 class=\"LeadText_lead-text__wd_PA __className_ab5de1\" data-testid=\"leadtext\">Chelsea are without five wingers for this weekend&#8217;s trip to Liverpool with interim head coach Calum McFarlane facing a big dilemma at Anfield<\/h2>\n<div class=\"Byline_byline-container__K_Owl\" data-testid=\"byline\"><span class=\"Byline_byline-content-wrapper__Imque\" data-testid=\"byline-content\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"Byline_author-badge-date-wrapper__Q7jj1\">\n<p><span class=\"\" data-testid=\"byline-publishedDate\">16:15, 07 May 2026<\/span><span class=\"ArticleTimestamp_updated-date__7qD4Q ArticleTimestamp_updated-date-with-published__iFKpF\" data-testid=\"byline-updatedDate\">Updated 16:26, 07 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"SlideViewerButton_slide-viewer-button__BDJoG\" aria-label=\"Open image viewer\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-controls=\"image-lightbox\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"ImageEmbed_image-embed__0T8WX ImageEmbed_image-lead__Ti3qQ\" data-testid=\"leadimage\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-articleid=\"33750979\">\n<div class=\"ImageEmbed_image-container__2AIQm\">\n<figure class=\"Figure_figure__Uce4f\" style=\"--figure-aspect-ratio:1.5\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Alejandro Garnacho celebrates\" loading=\"eager\" sizes=\"(max-width: 508px) 508px, (max-width: 615px) 615px, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article33750979.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_GettyImages-2269247295.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article33750979.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s508\/0_GettyImages-2269247295.jpg 508w, https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article33750979.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s615\/0_GettyImages-2269247295.jpg 615w, https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article33750979.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_GettyImages-2269247295.jpg 1200w\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption_caption__j7HRu\" data-testid=\"image-caption\">\n<p aria-label=\"Alejandro Garnacho celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Port Vale\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Alejandro Garnacho celebrates his goal for Chelsea against Port Vale<cite aria-label=\"Image: Andrew Kearns - CameraSport\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-credit__wlx1W\" data-testid=\"caption-credit\">(Image: Andrew Kearns &#8211; CameraSport)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<p><\/button><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Chelsea have been brutally struck by a plague of injuries, with interim head coach Calum McFarlane having no natural wingers fit for this weekend&#8217;s trip to Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">FOLLOW OUR CHELSEA FB PAGE!<\/strong> <strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">Latest Blues news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve still got a lot of good players, still got a lot of players available that can impact football games,&#8221; said McFarlane on a lack of options in wide areas. &#8220;So, we&#8217;re going to have to make up some of the players we&#8217;re missing in different ways, in the way that we shape the team up, but I probably don&#8217;t want to go into too much detail on that right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Chelsea are looking for their first league win in more than two months on Saturday afternoon and McFarlane has rubbished suggestions of his squad &#8216;downing tools&#8217; at this crucial part of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">He said: &#8220;No, I wouldn&#8217;t agree with that. The performances haven&#8217;t been good enough, we&#8217;re on a really bad run at the moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea are without five wingers for this weekend&#8217;s trip to Liverpool with interim head coach&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}