Ankle injury puts Terry out of Carling final

Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho confirmed captain John Terry is out of the Carling Cup Final on Sunday.

Terry was stretchered off with ankle ligament damage in the 11th minute of the 1-1 draw at Porto that saw Chelsea move closer to a place in the last eight of the Champions League.

The Chelsea and England captain appeared to turn his ankle as he went to clear the ball and immediately signalled to the bench that he could not continue.

Mourinho has confirmed Terry will miss Sunday’s showdown with London rivals Arsenal at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Mourinho said: “We don’t have Khalid Boulahrouz and we don’t have John Terry. We have one central defender: Ricardo Carvalho.

“From the moment he was injured, everything changed. Michael Essien is one of the players in form in Chelsea.

“In midfield, he is almost unstoppable because of his power but he is playing as a central defender again.

“We are not in an easy situation. I do not know when John Terry will be back, but I am cool about it.

“It is unbelievable because of the injuries we keep getting. I didn’t think Frank Lampard would play the game after seeing him on the morning of the match.

“But he is a top professional and wanted to play because he felt the team needed him.

“We have a lot of problems but we are surviving. We are there. We cannot cry about it. We have to play against Arsenal with Essien and Carvalho at the back. We don’t have a choice.”

Mourinho was full of praise for goalscorer Andriy Shevchenko after the Ukrainian equalised Raul Meireles’s 11th minute goal with his 58th strike in European competition five minutes later.

The Portuguese coach hopes to have Arjen Robben, taken off at half-time with a muscle problem, fit for Sunday.

Mourinho added: “Andriy scored a crucial goal for us. He was brilliant. His effort for the team is amazing and so is his improvement.

“I think Robben’s injury is a consequence of not warming up. I wanted to put Mikel Jon Obi on but they scored while we were down to 10 men, and so I put Robben on instead.

“He had to go straight on. I don’t think it is a big thing. At half-time he wanted to try and play on but I didn’t want to lose another player for a long time so I decided to put Mikel on.”

Porto boss Jesualdo Ferreira insisted his team would play better in the return leg at Stamford Bridge and made light of what had been a very aggressive encounter between the two sides.

Porto had been the better team in the opening half, but Mourinho’s decision to replace substitute Arjen Robben with Mikel Jon Obi at half-time curtailed the home side’s attacking thrust.

Ferreira said: “We think the game was very aggressive in a positive way.

“Porto were clearly better in the first half, but there was a decisive moment in the game when Chelsea scored their goal because it helped their confidence.

“The draw is clearly a negative result, but we think Porto as a team will play better in the second game in London.

“In London, we expect to play exactly the same, but there is another 90 minutes. We lost some confidence in the last 15 minutes but we are a young team.

“Both teams showed physical weaknesses towards the end. Chelsea tried to control the game and we tried to win. That is what happened.”