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Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel believes tough days lie ahead
for defenders who will be coming up against his London-based English Premier
League club side, Chelsea despite Wednesday’s Carling Cup loss to Newcastle
United.

The Blues rested a host of first-team players, including Mikel,
for the 4-3 home defeat to the Magpies and subsequently crashed out of the cup
tournament.

In addition to the loss, Salomon Kalou, Yossi Benayoun and Gael
Kakuta sustained injuries to make it a miserable Wednesday night for them and
their Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti.

To further compound the club’s woes, Frank Lampard, aggravated
his groin in training and will miss Saturday’s Premier League tie against
Manchester City at the City of Manchester Stadium.

Chelsea currently tops the league table having secured five
straight league wins over West Brom, Wigan, Stoke, West Ham and Blackpool but
Manchester City will present them with a different type of challenge with a
team packed to the brim with top quality players.

However Mikel believes that defenders facing Chelsea must be
running scared after the league champions made good their intention of
retaining the league title by smashing in 21 goals in their opening five league
games.

Loads of options

“If I was a defender playing against Chelsea, I would be very
scared because you don’t know where we’re going to come from – we have Ashley
Cole bombing forward on the left side all the time,” Mikel said.

So it is hard to know what to expect when we have all these
players bombing forward all the time.

“If you look at our front three, none of them has a static
position, they are all moving around.

“It is the same with the midfield although I tend to stay a
little bit more because I cannot afford to leave that position.

“Playing that way helps us a lot while the other team is thinking about
whether to follow Nicolas Anelka’s runs, Frank Lampard or Michael Essien,” he
said. City coach Roberto Mancini is also short of defensive options with only
Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany and Kolo Toure as certain starters in their
backline.