Chelsea reveal Ashley Cole has not traveled with the 21-man squad bound for Germany ahead of tomorrow’s Champions League game against Schalke in Gelsenkirchen.
But Abdre Schurrle, who picked up a muscle injury last week and missed Saturday’s 4-1 win over Cardiff City, was part of the squad which departed Gatwick on Monday.
Cole sustained a rib injury in Chelsea’s 3-1 win at Norwich and has missed both of England’s qualifiers against Montenegro and Poland, including Chelsea’s defeat of Cardiff at Stamford Bridge.
The pair trained on a wet Monday morning at Cobham, but Mourinho believes it is too early to thrust the England international into action and he has remained in London.
The good news is that, aside from Marco van Ginkel, the ‘Blues’ has no other injury worry.
At the other end, Schalke will be without their midfielder Marco Hoeger, who is out for the rest of the season because of a partial cruciate ligament tear in his right knee.
The Bundesliga club are already without striker Klaa-Jan Huntelaar, who underwent further knee surgery earlier on Monday and is not expected to return until after the winter break, and defender Kyriakos Papadopoulos. Midfielder Jeferson Farfan will also miss Tuesday’s tie.
Chelsea will win