Last season, Chelsea dropped valuable points whilst in the midst of an injury crisis. Then, their biggest losses were captain John Terry and keeper Petr Cech - but they also had key injuries to Joe Cole, Arjen Robben, Ashley Cole and central defensive cover Khalid Boulahrouz. The problem this season, even before a ball has been kicked in anger, seems far more widespread and potentially just as costly.

It's vital for all teams to get away to a good start in the new campaign, particularly when you look at Manchester United's fixtures and can't really seeing them losing until perhaps November. With Arsenal having an excellent pre-season, and Liverpool having improved their stock of strikers, Chelsea are in danger of getting caught in the starting blocks.

Not only do the Blues again have Terry out of action, probably for a month, and Wayne Bridge sidelined until late October, but there are current injuries to last season's entire strike force of Andriy Shevchenko, Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou. Behind them Michael Ballack, Claude Makelele, Robben and Paolo Ferreira are also out of action, and Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson, John Obi Mikel, Michael Essien and Frank Lampard are all either carrying knocks or are just returning from them. I'm not quite sure why both Lampard and Terry were playing pre-season games with broken toes, but if it was a gamble then it had better pay off.

'Chelsea need to be resilient during this injury crisis and look for hard-fought narrow victories'


It's quite likely that this Sunday's opener against Birmingham City will see Chelsea field a team with at least six changes from the side that started the FA Cup Final – all of them enforced. To be sure, Jose Mourinho will cite injuries as the reason if the Blues do get off to a bad start, but as with last season, it will be a reason rather than an excuse. Chelsea have resources in depth, but could any team afford to have that many unfit players and still expect to compete at the top of the Premier League?

As the last few seasons have shown, a top-four team that gets away to the best start will probably go on to be successful, because with the top teams losing so few games over the course of a season, it's very hard to claw lost points back. It seems hard to believe, but in the last three seasons, Chelsea have lost just nine Premier League games, and even lost the fewest last season. What cost them dear was too many draws, which mostly came about as the result of those injury-riddled games.

Chelsea need to be resilient and pragmatic once more during this fresh injury crisis, look once again for the hard-fought narrow victories, and then hope to be still in the mix when they have a full squad to choose from. Only then will we see whether this Chelsea side are going to be more attacking. And successful at it.