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Following the death of Blues midfielder Frank Lampard's mother, Pat, from pneumonia on Thursday, boss Avram Grant insists that the decision as to whether he plays against Manchester United will be left to the grieving player.
"He didn't train today and I can tell you that all our thoughts are with him," said Grant. "We are in contact. Frank was very close to his family, so it's not an easy situation.
"He's a professional with full commitment to the team. For the moment, because we have a game tomorrow, we will keep it between me and him. We need to respect him.
"We are a close family here at Chelsea and all our sympathies are with him and his family. We just want to make sure that, when Frank comes back, we will still be fighting.
"I think he will not play tomorrow, but we need to speak with him. In these things, football is very important but there are things that are more important. It's how he feels with this.
"All the players and the staff were very sad because of him. We cannot say more than all our sympathies are with him."
United and Chelsea are expected to wear black armbands as a mark of respect to the Lampard family.
Ahead of the top-of-the-table clash, Grant said: "They cannot become champions tomorrow.
"We don't want them to take the title here. We don't want them to be champions at all. We want to win tomorrow and the players are highly motivated.
"We've played attacking football since day one when I was here. We play with three forwards, sometimes changing it to 4-4-2. We will attack as we always do." |
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发表于 2008-4-25 17:20
发表于 2008-4-25 18:09
