Dalla Bona fears financial blues will strike down former club Chelsea

ITALIAN midfielder Sam Dalla Bona, who left Chelsea for AC Milan earlier this month, says he fears the English premier league side will fall apart.

“I fear the team will fall apart,” Dalla Bona said. “You would not want to be around when that happens.

“Chelsea spent a lot of money putting that squad together and everyone, including myself, expected great things. But it never happened and now there could be a big price to pay.

“The club needed Champions League money and this is why you now hear rumours that Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen could be for sale. It is very sad.”

Dalla Bona said one of the reasons he left Chelsea was because he failed to win a regular first team place.

“I was not given the chance to play, which is why I had no choice but to tell them not to bother with a new contract. The club said one of my reasons was because I needed to be nearer my family in Italy. But that wasn’t the real reason,” said Dalla Bona.

The 21-year-old midfielder has signed a five-year contract with Milan. He made 42 league appearances for Chelsea after joining the Londoners from Atalanta in 1998, although he is still to make his Serie A debut.

Chelsea finished sixth in the league last season and qualified for the UEFA Cup.

Elsewhere, Arsenal’s Freddie Ljungberg is depressed about missing the start of the English premier league season through injury, saying he has never felt so low in his career.

“Depression has set in,” Sweden’s World Cup midfielder said yesterday.

“It is a horrible time for me. I am so down at the moment and I won’t be looking at our opening games,” said Ljungberg, who expects to be sidelined for the first two months of the season after having an exploratory operation to mend a small tear to the cartilage around his hip joint.

“I will miss the first couple of months and watching matches makes me even more depressed. I cannot remember ever feeling this low in my career.”

Ljungberg’s injury meant he missed Sweden’s last two games at the World Cup, against Senegal, who knocked them out in the second round, and Argentina, with whom they drew 1-1 in the final group match.

The flame-haired 25-year-old has become a firm favourite at Highbury and scored a run of superb goals at the end of last season to help Arsenal to the league and FA Cup double.

Arsenal’s first league game of the season will be at home to newly-promoted Birmingham City on August 18.