Carlo Ancelotti has revealed Frank Lampard has recovered from his hernia surgery in time for the game against West Ham – but according to Caught Offside, none of us should be surprised about that seeing as Chelsea engineered it that way.

Here, according to Caught Offside are the facts:

“Frank Lampard was in a lot of pain after the Stoke City game, not in enough pain to prevent him from playing the lions share of the game. It was decided that it was however the ‘right time’ to have a ‘much needed’ operation at the exact same time as the international break. Now fully recovered the Stamford Bridge man will be fit to play for his club against West Ham on the weekend. Lampard, after conversations with the club doctor, decided that now was the time to resolve the problem immediately. Is this a coincidence? A sequence of events that is just a case of bad timing? Remember we are not talking about a pointless friendly, we are talking about two crucial Euro 2012 qualifiers.”

And obviously you can see their point because firstly, as we know, Frank’s never been all that keen on playing for his country so if surgery is what’s required to get out of a qualifier then obviously that’s the lengths he’d go to. He’s cleverer than just doing that though, is Frank, because he also managed to convincingly put in one of his poorest performances against Stoke – missing a penalty into the bargain - just so we were all fooled into thinking there might be a problem. And as for the bit where he actually looked to be in pain when he went off early, well he could give Didier Drogba a run for his money in the thespian stakes – sheer genius Frank!

So, what about John Terry – a player who’d do absolutely anything to get out of an international obviously – what do Caught Offside charge him with? Well, they say “OK, so the Chelsea captain has been playing in pain throughout the season and has managed to play every minute of the season thus far but for some reason the pain became too great exactly when his country needed him. He will more than likely also be fit and raring to go for the trip to Upton Park. Is this also a massive coincidence?”

Again, of course it’s not a coincidence. John Terry, who historically hasn’t pushed himself even when injured for either club or country and who would never suggest England was bigger than Chelsea for him, wanted to get out of an England game so much, he too put in a below par performance for his club – limping about for part of it – just for show. Clever lad.

Makes complete sense when you think about it and you can see exactly why those smart people over at Caught Offside would question whether the pair of them should be kicked out of the international set-up, right?

France and Anelka might believe they can live without each other but for us at Chelsea, Nicolas Anelka is more than welcome.

He might be considered ‘Le Sulk’ elsewhere and I’m sure very few gave him much chance of success when he came to Stamford Bridge but after some initial teething problems with dodgy managers, Anelka’s work-rate and ability have seen him establish himself as an ever-present in the first team.

Never one to shy away from bust-ups with management before his Chelsea days, Nicolas Anelka left Arsenal on bad terms, upset everyone at Real Madrid and fell out with the coach at PSG then had a loan spell at Liverpool before signing for Manchester City, Fenerbahce and finally Bolton before coming to Chelsea in the January transfer window of 2008. But for a player previously unable to settle anywhere, at Chelsea, he managed to hang on long enough for a manager who actually knew what to do with him and finally seems to have found somewhere he wants to stay – and the benefits are all ours.

With Didier Drogba spending more time out of the side in 2008/09, Nicolas Anelka not only stepped up to the plate but took the Golden Boot with 25 goals that season and whilst he didn’t manage that many last season, 15 was still a decent return given his number of assists.

With Didier Drogba uninjured and the main man up front in a 4-3-3, last season Anelka turned provider with the highest number of assists in his career. In fact, in a season where a Didier Drogba in blistering form managed the most goals and most assists in the Premier League, very few will have realised Anelka ranked in the top four for assists and higher still when it came to passes leading to chances.

So whilst Anelka, at 31, may well be one of the Chelsea players in the upper age group, he’s also one of the players who even at that age, is at the top of his game. And whilst France thought they were better off without him (and vice versa), from Chelsea’s point of view, he’s everything we want from a striker in his role. Gone is the cold and seemingly arrogant player whose relationship with his club’s management always seemed to be a bit of a time bomb and whose relationship with supporters was often distant at best and in its place is the Nicolas Anelka we see today. A player as happy to provide as he is to score, a player as happy to be noted for his work-rate as his skill – in short, a team player.

Nicolas Anelka finally seems to have developed into a player he’s happy to be at a club he’s happy to be at and his country’s loss will prove to be his club’s gain.

Park Ji-Sung tells ESPN Soccernet he’s not worried about Chelsea’s start to the season.

The Guardian tells us Frank Lampard thinks there’s more to come from Chelsea’s ‘Old Boys’.

VitalChelsea ponders the problem of Yuri Zhirkov

SkySports brings us Petr Cech’s thoughts on Chelsea’s Champions League chances

And Goal.com tells us Carlo Ancelotti plans to hang around.

TheOffside.com takes a look at the risks with the 19 man squad remaining

With Sport.co.uk also wondering whether Carlo Ancelotti’s might have a selection headache

VitalChelsea on the other hand are happy we didn’t buy a striker

And the official Chelsea site has an interview with Frank Lampard

I don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear this news…..well actually I do, it’s been since September 2008 when Essien sustained an injury whilst on international, which was to keep him out for 6 months. Then, when history repeated itself and he broke down in training for Ghana in January, missing the last 5 months of our season yet again, I was about ready to go to war with the Black Stars.

Mind you, that was nothing compared to the end of our double winning campaign – yes, the campaign Essien had missed half of thanks to international duty – because Ghana then had the front to ask if our recovering midfielder would be available for the World Cup.

Forget that he’d suffered consecutive injuries doing just that, forget that he’d spent 11 months out over the past two seasons because he’d been turning out for his country, and forget the fact he hadn’t quite made it back from injury, they still seemed to want to select him and go for the hattrick.

So, the news yesterday that Michael Essien has not only asked to take a break from international duty – but has also been given permission to do so – came as a massive, but extremely welcome surprise.

Following Essien’s decision to concentrate on getting back to his best for his club, Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac says “As you know with Michael he has had two very serious injuries both with the national team in the last two years. It affected him a lot. Whenever he was available he gave his best. Now he wants to concentrate on his club and we all need to understand that and I am sure after sometime he will come back to the national team and when we need him most he will be there to lead the team the way he knows.

“Michael contacted me after I decided on the list for the game against Swaziland and wanted to ask permission to be excused for a while. He didn’t bring this decision only by himself. I understood his thoughts and of course I want to help him to get into his old form, to start playing regularly and I gave that permission. I am sure he will come back to the national team early next year and when we need him the most.”

Fantastic news!

Jeffrey Bruma has been at Chelsea since 2007 and whilst he’s been missing through injury recently, having undergone hernia surgery, bringing him through to the first team always seemed to be part of

Carlo Ancelotti’s plans.

So, the welcome news that Chelsea have just given him a new contract which will keep him at the club until 2014 shouldn’t come as any great surprise.

Bruma himself, says “I have been working to improve all the time I have been here and a next step is getting your next contract, and now it is time to improve again. I have made my international debut already and that was the aim for two or three years’ time. It has come so early, and when you reach your targets you obviously have to set new ones, so my new targets are to play as much as I can at Chelsea in the first team and get in the Dutch full squad again as soon as I am fit.”

And that’s exactly the sort of attitude we want.

Ironically, whilst TheChelseaBlog keeps harping on about defensive concerns due to current injuries and lack of cover, Nicolas Anelka believes that our defence actually holds the key to our performances so far this season.

I mean, you can’t argue with him that we’ve scored 14 in our first 3 games without reply and a confident Anelka says “We have the mentality not to concede first and then we know almost every time we can score one goal. You know when you play with Chelsea that if I don’t score, Didier can score and if he doesn’t score, Flo (Florent Malouda) can score and if none of us score, Sala [Salomon Kalou] can come on and score. Everybody can score in this team.”

I’m not saying I don’t agree that that’s been the case so far but I will just add that so far, we have played West Brom, Wigan and Stoke. We haven’t had JT, Ivanovic and Bruma on the injury list for all three of those and I just wonder how we’d have fared firstly against better attacking opponents and secondly if those three players had all been out together sooner.

Anyway, onto a point I won’t question from our French striker and that is the form of Florent Malouda at the start of this campaign, with Anelka stating “Flo likes to listen to ragga music in the dressing room and dance and it is fun. On the pitch he is intelligent, he can score, he can assist and also he is very strong. Now he scores more goals than before and he wants to score more and more. He has been here three years and he has got use to it, he has more confidence. It is difficult to come from the French League and straight away to a big club like Chelsea. In England it is tough, it is stronger, everything is quicker and you have to get some games to get used to the English game. Now he knows the English Premier League and you see it on the pitch.”

Definitely no argument from me there because Malouda has started this season the way he finished last season and if he can sustain that momentum even after the international break, yet again he stands to be one of our most important players in the defence of our title.

With just hours left of the transfer window, the Asmir Begovic row is getting a bit tasty. We’d already heard from Tony Pulis how the Stoke keeper had ‘refused to play’ but that he had no chance of getting a transfer to Chelsea. Now Begovic himself has stirred things up a bit more by countering what he calls a ‘disgraceful accusation.’

Pulis had claimed the Bosnian keeper had refused to play in last week’s Carling Cup game against Shrewsbury and the suggestion was he was trying to get himself a way out of Stoke following an offer from Chelsea which the club declined.

However, Begovic insists “I never refused to play. I’d never do such a thing to turn down a chance to play a first-team game. I was aware that there was a bid made and he (Pulis) said it was being considered. We spoke about it, it was a private conversation and for it to get out publicly was a little bit disappointing. I tried to see him before the team meeting but he refused to see me and then he named the team. We spoke about the situation and as far as he was concerned he understood the position I was in and he didn’t have any problems with me not playing at the time and I thought that was the end of the story but I would never go on strike. That’s an absolutely disgraceful accusation for people to make.”

The other thing of note in this saga is that Sorensen sustained an elbow injury at the weekend, so it’ll be more than interesting to see where this one ends up!