Valera hamstrung as Chelsea's front line takes a hammering
Chelsea's Spanish striker Nacho Valera has torn a hamstring and is expected to miss around 66 days, a stretch that could cost him 14 club games.
Chelsea lose their cutting edge for two months. Nacho Valera tore a hamstring on 24 October and the medical staff expect him to be out for about 66 days, with a return around 29 December. That is 14 club games of a season in which he had scored six goals in seven appearances, and no amount of tactical shuffling quite fills the hole a striker of that habit leaves at the point of the attack.
He has been the finisher in a Chelsea side that has won ten league games in a row and sits top of the English Premier Division after ten, and his absence will be felt in the rhythm of a front line that has been ruthless. The fixture list does not wait, and a squad that has been enjoying its football must now find goals from elsewhere while he recovers.