Chelsea await confirmation of extent of Carvalho’s back injury

CHELSEA are still awaiting confirmation that Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho has broken small bones in his back and faces a two-month lay-off.

Carvalho, 29, was injured after falling awkwardly in the first half of the 1-1 draw with Everton on Sunday and was forced to retire from the game.

The defender returned to Portugal and was examined by the national team’s medical staff. Portuguese doctor Henrique Jones insisted Carvalho had fractured small bones in his back and would be out for eight weeks.

But Chelsea were still waiting anxiously for the results of further examinations on the defender.

Jones said: “Ricardo has suffered fractures of the small bones on his second, third and fourth vertebrae and will be out for eight weeks.”

While Chelsea await confirmation of Carvalho’s injury, manager Avram Grant has spoken of the challenge he faced in replacing Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho.

The 52-year-old Israeli was asked to take charge after Mourinho left the club by mutual consent in September.

Grant has since steered Chelsea back into the title race and to the brink of qualification for the Champions League knockout stage, and suffered just one defeat in all competitions.

Grant declared: “It was not difficult for me, it was a challenge. I have been coaching since I was 18, first with youth teams, then with teams in the (Israeli) Premier League, then the national team.

“I followed many games and many training seasons for the last 30 years all over the world, especially in England, because in Israel everybody supports an English club and I came as a director to build a team at Portsmouth.

“I think we did a very good job, you see Portsmouth now compared to the Portsmouth before. Then I came to Chelsea to do the same job but it is a different job and then suddenly it happened that I needed to be the manager in the middle of the year.

“So from one thing it’s a great honour to be manager of Chelsea, but on the other hand, it’s the first time in my life that I have had to take a job like this in the middle of the year.

“I think my strength is that I like to create something from the base, step by step. Here you need to do it but in a very short time, you have a game every four days. I wanted to bring a good result but I wanted to do it in a different way.

“I don’t mean the way before wasn’t good but it doesn’t matter because each coach has his own way. So it wasn’t easy but it was a challenge.”