So the good news is that David Luiz got through the game for Brazil unscathed the other night against England at Wembley, proving his fitness in doing so and showing that the calf muscle injury he picked up in the second tie of the Capital One League Cup semi-final played at the Liberty Stadium is hopefully a thing of the past; Petr Cech has recovered from the broken finger he sustained against Newcastle last week which suggests that it could only have been a hairline fracture to one of his less important fingers; and Demba Ba after collecting his “welcome back” present of a broken nose from his former Geordie team mates is now able to play again.
The most remarkable recovery has to be Ba’s, as when you looked at the incident where Newcastle’s captain and centre-back, Fabricio Coloccini, tried to clear the ball from the box and accidentally booted Demba right smack in the nose you could imagine that Ba would be needing surgery and a couple of weeks on the sidelines. But the man has showed he is made of stronger stuff and has been training with the type of protective face-mask made famous by National Basketball Association players playing in North America. This type of mask allows the player to maintain total vision while giving really good protection from further injury when players have broken noses, fractured jaws and other serious facial injuries.
The only bad news on the injury front is that club captain John Terry is out for at least the Wigan game with an inflamed knee. This should clear up fairly quickly but it would definitely have been a bonus to have had JT available for the almost must-win game against Wigan Athletic. Going four games without a win after draws with Reading, Swansea and Brentford and last week’s loss against Newcastle United means Benitez is under pressure to break the streak and deliver a win and I am sure he would have liked to select Terry for this encounter, but it is not to be. Fortunately, there are no other new injuries with only Oriol Romeu still remaining as a long-term absentee and Eden Hazard comes back into the reckoning as he has completed his 3 match ban after the ball-boy incident against Swansea City.