Uli Names his Squad

Well it looks like coach Uli Stielike has decided to place full faith in a Drogba recovery. Despite recently undergoing surgery and having just returned to Chelsea training Drogba is on the 23 man squad for the Nations Cup. I have always been a big time a skeptic of the Chelsea fitness crew with constant injuries, and tons of repeats I have always wondered exactly how poor the conditioning may be. It was just recently that Florent Malouda called out the training in the EPL in general and as an IC I have to wonder if the man is in the wrong hands. Drogba and the rest of the elephants named below will be breaking from their club teams shortly and entering training camp, and it will be interesting to see how Drogba recovers.

There are very few other surprises in the squad, with many of the names being household names from the World Cup.

Goalkeepers: Boubacar Barry (Lokeren), Tiasse Kone (Africa Sports), Stephan Loboue (SpVgg Greuther Furth)

Defenders: Arthur Boka (VfB Stuttgart), Constant Djakpa (Pandurii Targu Jiu), Emmanuel Eboue (Arsenal), Steve Gohouri (Borussia Moenchengladbach), Abdoulaye Meite (Bolton Wanderers), Kolo Toure (Arsenal), Marc Zoro (Benfica)

Midfielders: Emerse Fae (Reading), Christian Koffi Ndri (Le Mans), Siaka Tiene (St Etienne), Gneri Yaya Toure (Barcelona), Didier Zokora (Tottenham Hotspur)

Forwards: Aruna Dindane (Racing Lens), Didier Drogba (Chelsea), Salomon Kalou (Chelsea), Abdelkader Keita (Olympique Lyon), Arouna Kone (Sevilla), Bakary Kone (Nice), Gervais Yao Kouassi (Le Mans),
Boubacar Sanogo (Werder Bremen).

You have to be really comfortable if your Uli with a winning eleven that looks like this: Barry (weak in my opinion but better than the rest), Toure, Eboue, Zoro, Meite (having a solid campaign at Bolton), Zokora, Toure, Tiene, Dindane, Drogba, Keita/Kones/Kalou.

It’s a solid squad and it’s a shame they cannot play a 4-2-4 with the amount of depth this squad has up front. It stinks that so many phenomal players will be on the bench but hopefully there is no lack of scoring.