Chelsea team news: striker Fernando Torres out of Schalke clash

Spaniard will miss Schalke’s visit to Stamford Bridge.
Fernando Torres has been ruled out of Chelsea’s Champions League clash with Schalke on Wednesday and will have scans to determine the extent of his muscular problem.
Torres suffered the injury in training and will not return until after the international break at the earliest.

It means the Spain striker, who scored twice in Chelsea’s 3-0 Group E win over Schalke in Germany last month, is unavailable for a match at Stamford Bridge where Blues manager Jose Mourinho has demanded a response following a 2-0 Premier League defeat at Newcastle United last weekend.


“Fernando has a muscular injury,” Mourinho told reporters at Chelsea’s training ground in Cobham, south of London, on Tuesday. “We don’t know the dimension but we await the scans.

“But he is out for this game and out for the weekend too. After that comes an international break. Let’s see if he can recover after that,” the Portuguese added.
Torres’s injury comes at a bad time for Mourinho as he wants his team back on track after defeat at St James’ Park ended a run of six successive wins.

Mourinho has pointed the finger at a change of mentality and complacency in his squad as a reason for the London club’s poor performance in the north-east on Saturday.
“Sometimes, when you win a lot of times, players forget why they win,” he explained. “Probably they forgot why they won against Schalke, they won against Arsenal, against Manchester City.

“When you win three, four, five matches they forget why they won and think they win just because they are good.

“But there are many other ingredients in football that make you a consistent winner.
“I hope now they don’t forget why they won a lot of matches and why they lost against Newcastle,” added Mourinho, now in his second spell as Chelsea manager.
“If they have that clear in their minds, they’ll be fine.”

Mourinho revealed he angrily confronted his players at half-time against Newcastle when, even though the game was still goalless, he sensed something wasn’t right.

“Suddenly you get a match where you become a little bit complacent. It’s the mistake not just of football players, but human beings.

“Maybe I was also influenced by the way they grew up so fast as a team, and the way they could play so fast to compete in that week.

“They coped very, very well with the pressure we put on ourselves in the Champions League.
“They reacted so well under that pressure, winning six crucial points for us.

“So maybe I was also caught by surprise. But the only difference is, during the first half, it looked like they were not feeling it and I was feeling it.

“You cannot think you win because you have a nice shirt or are in a good run or a lucky moment. If you think like that, you’re in trouble.

“You can never forget why you are winning matches. Maybe we forgot.”
Mourinho is unlikely to change the entire team from the Newcastle defeat, despite saying afterwards he made 11 selection mistakes.

However, Ryan Bertrand has also been ruled out with a training-ground injury.
Meanwhile Mourinho said he remained wary of the threat posed by Schalke.

“First of all, their record away is very good. Not just in the Bundesliga but also in European competitions.
“They have very good results away, which means they feel much more comfortable playing away than at home.”