Jose
Mourinho blamed the pitch at Haifa's Sammy Ofer Stadium for the ankle injury
suffered by John Terry, which could see the Chelsea captain ruled out of
Sunday's Premier League clash at Tottenham.
Chelsea's Champions League fate will go to the final group game after a 4-0
win over 10-man Maccabi Tel Aviv saw them earn successive victories for the
first time in two months.
Whether their resurgence - following Saturday's win over Norwich - is real
will be tested by Spurs but there is a major doubt over whether Terry will
feature at White Hart Lane after he departed on a stretcher.
"The surface was bad and dangerous," Mourinho said. "John has an ankle
problem that we don't know yet the dimension of. For John to leave the pitch
with the result 1-0 I know already that he is in trouble.
"My medical department is really good. John is a special guy, with a special
desire to recover. But I think to leave the pitch with the result 1-0, I
don't believe too much that he can play [against Spurs]."
Ramires was not in the matchday squad after suffering an injury in training
on Monday, when Chelsea tried to minimise their time on the pitch.
"Yesterday we tried to protect [the pitch], we trained just a little bit.
But by my surprise Maccabi were training after us, plus the warm-up before
the game," Mourinho said. "The pitch was really bad. Ramires slid and had a
muscular injury."
After Gary Cahill's opening goal, Mourinho took it upon himself to replace
divots on the pitch in front of his technical area. He said: "I think after
what I did, I think it was worse. I tried."
top