The Daily Mail website has revealed that interim Chelsea manager Rafael Benítez will drop his Brazilian playmaker Oscar for Saturday’s trip to Upton Park to face West Ham United, despite not scoring once in either of his first two games in charge.
Oscar, 20, has been one of Chelsea’s key attacking threat’s so far this season, and the move to bench the former Internacional star is unlikely to go down well with the Stamford Bridge faithfull who are already against the appointment of the former Liverpool boss as their new manager.
The report suggests that Benítez, who dropped Juan Mata to the bench for Wednesday’s 0-0 draw against Fulham, think’s that Oscar may struggle against West Ham’s physical midfield and also that Victor Moses may be better suited to get the best out of struggling Spanish striker Fernando Torres.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, the Spanish coach said it was important to rotate his players to keep them fresh, as he had done with Mata on Wednesday.
“My idea is to use the squad, we have too many players playing almost every game, so we have 11 or 12 playing almost every game, and the other players didn’t have too many minutes.
“So we will try to fix this, you cannot play two, three games in eight days and be fully fit.
“You lose some pace, you lose some energy, so you manage the squad, we have quality, so you can manage the squad and give some minutes to every player, especially now we have Japan (for the Club World Cup).”
Chelsea face West Ham without a win in their last six games, and currently sit third in the Premier League table, seven points behind leaders Manchester United.
