What is this latest nonsense coming out of Jose Mourinho? “If Ashley [Cole] is ready we have 15 players for the final”. And then the topper: “I will have to decide about Hilario because he is not bad playing forward or I’ll bring one of the kids in to make 16.”
So what Mourinho wants us to believe is that in the entire Chelsea organization, including their reserves, and at all levels of the club, there is not a more qualified striker than back-up goalkeeper Henrique Hilario? This is laughable, and of course he is just setting up his excuses in the event they are beaten by Manchester United in the FA Cup Final this Saturday. I can hear it now… “We lost because we did not have another striker to substitute for <insert name here> when they were hurt”, or maybe “If we could have played at full strength, the result would have been different”. I suppose there are a multitude of excuses you could roll out to justify a loss, but to me the bottom line is that he is just prepping Roman Abramovich for the disappointment (if it comes).
By contrast, Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t make any excuses (that I found) regarding the injuries that ravaged Manchester over the last few months. I credit the loss at AC Milan to trying to bring some of the walking wounded back onto the pitch too soon – they should have just stuck with the match fit players, but that’s another posting. 
Suffice it to say that Jose should just keep his trap shut, play the game, and see what happens. It may turn out that all of his careful excuse planning won’t even be necessary and that he made himself look a bit foolish for nothing.
Then again, maybe Hilario can play forward. After all, we have seen O’Shea at keeper this season…
