Mourinho reveals soft centre

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho watched his side demolish Coca-Cola League Two minnows Macclesfield in the FA Cup and then admitted he will be without a single central defender for the Carling Cup semi-final with Wycombe.

Chelsea are away to Wanderers in the first leg on Wednesday night but injuries to Khalid Boulahrouz and captain John Terry, plus a suspension for Ricardo Carvalho, will leave Mourinho without a single recognised centre-half.

The Portuguese coach revealed his defensive pairing for the clash with Wycombe will be right-back Paulo Ferreira and midfielder Michael Essien.

Mourinho said: “If our game against Macclesfield was difficult, against Wycombe it will be even more difficult.

“Against Macclesfield, we had one central defender, but against Wycombe we have zero. The moment is difficult and everybody knows we are trying to hide the way we play.

“In this moment, we are playing better because some players are getting into the routine of the positions.

“Paulo is getting some routines of his new position and, at the same time, we are playing with our defensive line much more up the field.

“In the last two matches, our defensive line has moved up 15 or 20 metres and, when we defend that far away from our box, we can control it because we have fast players.

“We are improving even under these difficult circumstances.”

Chelsea despatched Macclesfield with ease despite John Murphy cancelling out Frank Lampard’s 16th minute opener.

Lampard put the Blues back in front within a minute of Murphy’s 40th minute leveller and then completed a hat-trick when goalkeeper Tommy Lee was harshly adjudged to have brought down Andriy Shevchenko.

The Town keeper was sent off and Lampard converted the spot-kick. With no reserve keeper on the bench, Town defender David Morley went in goal.

He could not stop Shaun Wright-Phillips, Mikel Jon Obi and Carvalho from making the scoreline 6-1 at the finish although one man not on the scoresheet was £30 million record buy Shevchenko.

However, Mourinho added: “I think he tried hard. That is a step. It is frustrating for a striker to be in a team that wins 6-1 and he is not on the scoresheet.

“But he fought hard. Maybe in some other matches I could not say this. He just accepted without a fight the moment he was living in but, against Macclesfield, he chased the luck and fought hard.

“He worked hard for the team and got a yellow card because, without the ball, he was putting pressure on people and trying to make it good for the team so it was a step forward.”

The return of Terry and goalkeeper Petr Cech, both expected to happen shortly, will boost Chelsea's cause immensely but England midfielder Joe Cole looks certain to have kicked his last ball this season.

Chelsea doctor Bryan English has revealed that Cole, who underwent surgery on his broken foot on New Year’s Day, has an injury that needs careful treatment.

English said: “He had his operation on New Year’s Day. he’s now got a month of non-weight bearing on the foot with the stress fracture and then we can carefully start rehabilitation.

“The thing is with this stress fracture of the navicular, which is what he has, it’s one of the few very special problems for serious sportsmen where you have to ensure maximum recovery before they play again because of the poor blood supply to the bone.”

REF‘S REPORT: Lee Mason (Lancs) – A good performance blotted by the match-defining moment of the game when he sent off Macclesfield goalkeeper Tommy Lee for bringing down an already falling Andriy Shevchenko. Got it hopelessly wrong.

FUSSY FACTOR: Failed to penalise bad fouls from both sides in the early stages with yellow cards.