Chelsea take on Eintracht Frankfurt tonight in the Europa League semi-final first leg and Maurizio Sarri admits that the Blues are in 'trouble'.
That is over the centre-back issue with all three of Antonio Rudiger, Gary Cahill and Ethan Ampadu not fit enough to take their place in the 19-man squad.
So it means that Sarri has no recognisable back-up to David Luiz or Andreas Christensen tonight should there be an injury, so Sarri is planning for another way to get around the situation.
"Cahill is out. It's a medical problem to his tendon, his Achilles tendon. So he's out," Sarri said. "He's out at the moment and I hope to recover him in one week, but I don't know at the moment.
Every word Maurizio Sarri just said on Chelsea at Eintracht Frankfurt, Rudiger's injury & more
"But he is out from... starting four or five days ago. So we are in trouble with the centre-backs.
"In the last two training sessions, we played with Azpilicueta as a centre-back in case. I think he's the only one who can play there.
"We've played 58 matches and in the past we were lucky with injuries. In the last 10 days, not so lucky."
Chelsea will be hoping that the Europa League's top scorer, Olivier Giroud, will add to his goal tally of 10 and fire them into a decent lead for the second leg.
He is likely to start up top tonight with Eden Hazard and Pedro flanking him, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek coming back into the side in midfield.
Meanwhile, Emerson is expected to be in the left-back position, taking the place of Marcos Alonso who played at Manchester United at the weekend.
Predicted Chelsea team: Kepa, Emerson, Luiz, Christensen, Azpilicueta, Jorginho, Kante, Loftus-Cheek, Hazard, Pedro, Giroud.
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