What about the attack ? Anelka, Drogba, Malouda, all in their thirties, Roman has to invest ..
Kalou, Sturridge, Zhirkov, possibly Kakuta. Kalou's a competent player, Sturridge is young and decent (though personally I don't rate him, his pace can cause anyone trouble) Zhirkov is a good, versatile player and Kakuta, whilst in my eyes not yet Prem standard, can fill in for a couple of matches. As for a striker, though, I agree with you, unless Borini turns out to be quality.
The general idea was that if we got an injury in the centre of the park we would have Yossi Benayoun and Ramires to come in for us. Seeing as Lampard and also Yossi are out that only leaves Ramires as the only high profile (sort of) player to come in. Which then leaves the young lad McEachran on the bench. Zhrikov has also played most of his games in a Chelsea shirt as a central midfielder but he is also out injured.
Don't really know what people expect us to do. Making a thing out of nothing.
Right, okay. I'll give you Yossi, fair enough. But Ramires? Hardly a creative, thoughtful attacking player. He's more of a dynamic box-to-boxer, something which admittedly Lampard is accomplished at, but Ramires fails on two counts. One, Lampard is Chelsea's main attacking outlet: much of their play flows through him. Ramires has neither the passing nor the vision to perform like this. Two, he's far more defensively minded than Lampard, more of an Essien.
As I said, you need like-for-likes to fill gaps. You rightly mentioned Benayoun, and I will admit I had forgotten about him. However, my point still stands: your replacement for your vitally important 32 year old central midfielder, a 30 year old, is crocked. With Arsenal, this'd be fine: Nasri, Wilshere, Ramsey, Rosicky, Arshavin all fill this role with ease. Manchester United have Scholes, Anderson, Carrick; ****, even Park, Giggs and Gibson.
Also, your point about Zhirkov is rather illustrating my point. When you're resorting to playing a left back/winger in central midfield, things are badly wrong. What I expect Chelsea to do is buy a decent backup. Someone of decent stock, fairly young and with good potential, someone of the Renato Augusto mould, perhaps?