Chelsea captain John Terry has given his backing to striker Didier Drogba, who has been leading the attack in the absence of Loic Remy and star striker Diego Costa.
The duo have been injured for the last few matches and Jose Mourinho has been left with no option but to start with the 36-year-old Drogba, who returned to the club for a second spell in the summer. Not many expected him to score goals at the same rate as in his first spell, but the former Ivory Coast international has surprised many by scoring in three games in succession.
His first goal came through a penalty against Maribor while he has since followed up with goals against Manchester United and Shrewsbury Town. This has prompted Terry to shower praise on Drogba. Jose Mourinho has been speaking a lot about Drogba being an ideal mentor for the young players the team. He has proven in the last few weeks that he can be more than just a squad player. The goals and performance are sharp improvement over the first few matches when Drogba struggled to get into the game. He has said that he would have never returned to Chelsea if he thought that he was not good enough.
“We’ve got a big squad; Didier came on and showed what a great player he still is.The players are showing how important the depth of our squad could be this season.As the manager rightly says, everybody’s got a part to play and we’ve seen that in the last few games,” said Terry prior to the Manchester United match. Drogba opened the scoring against United with a header in the second half. Chelsea came very close to getting three points before being pegged back by a late equaliser from Robin van Persie.