Rijkaard enjoys ‘peaceful’ hype

FRANK RIJKAARD admits the serious injury to Petr Cech has taken the usual sting out of Barcelona’s visit to Chelsea.

The hype, the expectation and the mind games which have surrounded recent games between the two clubs have been absent ahead of tomorrow’s Champions League Group A game.

Barcelona boss Rijkaard claims that is partly because of the situation involving Chelsea goalkeeper Cech, who is in hospital recovering from an operation on a depressed fracture of his skull, sustained in Saturday’s win at Reading.

Rijkaard said: “If things are a little more peaceful than in the past it might be to do with the injuries, especially the bad injury to Petr Cech.

“Maybe that’s why the people within the club at Chelsea are a little bit calmer than they were in the past.

“I haven’t seen what happened to Cech but I’ve read about it in the newspapers and it is terrible.

“I really hope this great goalkeeper can recover and I hope to see him back as soon as possible.”

Cech, 24, collided with Reading’s Stephen Hunt on Saturday, and third-choice Henrique Hilario will start in goal against Barcelona because Carlo Cudicini was also hurt at Reading.

Cudicini was knocked unconscious and swallowed his tongue late in the game and will not play again until next week.

Rijkaard said: “It isn’t easy to be a substitute for Cech or Cudicini but I think all the ‘keepers at Chelsea have their qualities and we don’t have any special tactics.

“Chelsea are a great side who fight a lot and are very hard to beat.

“They have changed some players and brought in new faces since we played them last season but when you are talking about (Michael) Ballack and (Andriy) Shevchenko you are talking about great replacements.”

Barcelona, without injured Samuel Eto’o and Juliano Belletti, face Real Madrid in the league on Sunday but Rijkaard insists he will not be resting any players from the game at Stamford Bridge.