Chelsea fearing loss of Drogba and Essien

While Sir Alex begins the mind games by building up Chelsea in the expectation of knocking them down, there is a real fear among the Geriacticos of the Bridge that their championship charge will be hurt more by the African Nations Cup than by Manchester United on Sunday.

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Ancelotti will miss Didier Drogba

The Geriacticos, the Chelsea Pensioners with the oldest average age in the Premier League, will two of their irreplaceable stars to the tournament after the turn of the year - Didier Drogba and Michael Essien. The club will also lose Salomon Kalou and John Obi Mikel, reducing their options and cover considerably.

With Chelsea fielding six players aged 30 or over and not a single player under 25 at the start of their last Premier League game, the concern is that they may also hit some injuries to their vastly experienced superstars at the same time.

Publicly, Chelsea are keeping a brave face on the situation but inside the Bridge the alarm bells have been sounded.

A source close to Chelsea told ESPN Soccernet: ''There is deep concern that this could derail the clubs title aspirations. There is no doubt that they are going to miss key players like Essien and Drogba and their squad will also be tested to the limit if they have a growing injury list by the turn of the year.

''This is not something that the club want to highlight publicly but it is something they are fretting about behind the scenes.

''The club are fortunate that they do not have a daunting fixture list at this time, but there is no doubt that their squad will be over stretched if they have any injuries on top. Of course, Drogba and Essien are so key to the team, that is true, and they have been playing so well this season there is no doubt that they will be badly missed.''

While Chelsea have a vastly superior squad to Liverpool in terms of depth, losing Drogba and Essien is akin to Rafa Benitez doing without Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard. Chelsea do, though, have the ability to call upon Nicolas Anelka and may yet get the chance to sign some backup players in January after CAS suspended their two-year transfer ban on Friday.

For the moment Chelsea's focus is purely on United on Sunday, and Sir Alex's mind games are now transparent.

The wily old Scot has been talking up the coaching talents of Carlo Ancelotti, and the Chelsea side, to put his own team in the frame of mind that they will need something special to beat them, and to lower expectations just in case they don't.

Sir Alex also likes to install a mind set of complacency within Chelsea by suggesting that as they are so good, they might not have to try so hard to beat United. Sir Alex's tricks are now so old, they are unlikely to have much impact.