Essien absence will be tough - Cole

Defender Ashley Cole admits it will be a huge blow to lose midfielder Michael Essien for three matches after the Ghana international was sent off against Derby on Saturday.

Essien was shown a red card for pushing Kenny Miller in the face during stoppage time at Pride Park and he will now miss games against West Ham, Sunderland as well as the clash with Barclays Premier League leaders Arsenal.

The dismissal was the only blot on Chelsea’s fourth consecutive away win, which was secured with goals from Salomon Kalou and Shaun Wright-Phillips.

“We are not happy with the decision with Michael Essien, but I don’t want to go shouting my mouth off because I will get into trouble,” Cole said.

“From what I saw, it did not look like he really got him. He does that every day in training. It is just the way he is. He does not mean to hurt anyone. He just plays hard. We all know how strong he is and he is not a nasty player.

“It is a big blow to lose him for a suspension now, because we have got a lot of tough games coming up and it is going to be tough without him, but Steve Sidwell did brilliantly and it is great to have him to come in.”

The win against Derby, their eighth of the season, kept Chelsea in fourth five points behind Arsenal.

Chelsea may not have produced the hammerings their main rivals did (Liverpool winning 6-0 and Arsenal 5-0 – albeit both on their home grounds) but Cole said the Blues had not yet reached their peak.

“We are still not playing as well as we know we can, but we are grinding out points and we are closing the gap on the others now,” said the England left-back.

Cole returned to the side along with captain John Terry, who completed his first match since early October having been sidelined with a knee injury.

The England centre-back is looking to use the Derby win as a springboard.

“We need to go on a nice run now, 10, 15 games to push us up there,” he said.

“That’s what we’re aiming for. If we keep on doing that then we have a good chance. We need to maintain it over the course of the Christmas period, when the games come thick and fast. As long as we’re at our game and keep everybody fit we have a chance.”

Terry also admitted he fully expected to be booed by the fans at Pride Park after England’s disastrous Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.

“We expect that and everybody takes full responsibility. We didn’t play well enough to qualify from the group and we probably deserved that,” he added.

“It’s not nice but as I say we take that on our shoulders and try to take that on to the next campaign.”

Chelsea now go to Rosenborg on Wednesday where victory in Trondheim will put them into the knockout stages of the Champions League.

Cole wants to ensure they have qualification sewn up before the visit of Valencia in the final Group B game.

“It would be good to wrap up the job there. We know that it is going to be freezing cold and a hard game, but if we can go there and win it will wrap things up and put us through.”

Chelsea have been boosted by midfielder Michael Ballack’s return to action for the first time in seven months.

Ballack is part of the Chelsea reserve side which takes on Birmingham at Brentford’s Griffin Park tonight.

It will be the Germany captain’s first competitive football since last April, since when he has undergone two operations on his ankle.