Updated 10:59, 08 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nInterim boss Calum McFarlane has denied the Chelsea players have ‘downed tools’(Image: Darren Walsh\/Chelsea FC)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/button><\/p>\n
Interim boss Calum McFarlane has denied accusations that Chelsea’s players have ‘downed tools’ this season ahead of the visit to Liverpool on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Thousands of angry fans left early on Monday as the struggling Stamford Bridge side slipped to a sixth straight Premier League defeat after going down 3-1 at home to Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n
That desperate run, their worst since 1993, means Chelsea cannot finish in the top five and qualify automatically for the Champions League.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Alexis Mac Allister agent shares Liverpool star’s transfer stance amid contract silence<\/span><\/span>READ MORE: Jurgen Klopp has already approved of Michael Owen’s Mohamed Salah replacement at Liverpool<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nPerformances may suggest otherwise, but ahead of the clash with fifth-placed Liverpool, McFarlane insisted his squad have not thrown in the towel.<\/p>\n
“No, I wouldn’t agree with that,” he said at his pre-match press conference. “The performances haven’t been good enough, we’re in a really bad run at the moment.<\/p>\n
“But I do see these boys every day, every training session, every meeting, in the gym, they are in a good place to go and attack games.<\/p>\n
“We just haven’t been able to translate that on the game on Monday, so hopefully we can improve that on Saturday.”<\/p>\n
McFarlane will be without goalkeeper Robert Sanchez against the Reds owing to the head injury he suffered against Forest, while wingers Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho are doubts.<\/p>\n
FOLLOW OUR LIVERPOOL FC FACEBOOK PAGE!<\/strong> All the latest news and analysis from Anfield on the Liverpool Echo’s dedicated LFC Facebook page<\/u><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n McFarlane also revealed that despite some “positive” news surrounding teenage debutant Jesse Derry following his horror head injury during the loss, the forward will not play again this season.<\/p>\n
“I spoke to Jesse’s dad the night it happened, I spoke to him yesterday, I spoke to the family yesterday as well, and it’s positive, really positive,” added McFarlane, who will also be without Jamie Bynoe-Gittens and Estevao.<\/p>\n
“I don’t have the knowledge or the insights to go into massive detail, but all early signs are really positive.<\/p>\n
“It’s really disappointing, obviously as long as he’s healthy and the way he’s looking now is what really matters.<\/p>\n
“But it was great to give him his debut. I worked with Jesse in the under-21s, he’s had a fantastic season.<\/p>\n
“He’s not going to be available for us from now to the end of the season now, so it’s an abrupt end to his season. But it was amazing for him to make his debut and I think he showed in that first half his quality and what he can bring to this team.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea head to Anfield on Saturday to take on Liverpool on the back of six…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5889","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\/5889","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=5889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}