{"id":3628,"date":"2014-04-19T04:51:53","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T04:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=3628"},"modified":"2014-04-19T05:22:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T05:22:46","slug":"mourinho-will-improvise-with-luis-rather-than-use-ashley-cole-for-against-atletico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/mourinho-will-improvise-with-luis-rather-than-use-ashley-cole-for-against-atletico\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourinho Will Improvise With Luis Rather Than Use Ashley Cole Against Atletico"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jose Mourinho is ready to take a huge Champions League gamble by leaving Ashley Cole out of his side to visit Atletico Madrid for next week’s semi-final first leg.<\/p>\n

In a move that would effectively spell the end of Cole\u2019s Chelsea career – and probably kill his World Cup hopes – boss Mourinho is considering playing David Luiz at right-back in place of the suspended Branislav Ivanovic, rather than switching Cesar Azpilicueta there from left-back and recalling the Englishman.<\/p>\n

Such a confirmation of how far Cole has tumbled in Mourinho\u2019s thinking will surely convince the 33-year-old that he has no future at the Blues.<\/p>\n

Cole\u2019s last Chelsea start came in the FA Cup win over Stoke on January 26. He has played just 12 minutes \u2013 also against the Potters, in the league – since.<\/p>\n

The long-time England left-back, who has been fighting with Southampton\u2019s Luke Shaw to join Leighton Baines in Roy Hodgson\u2019s final 23 for Brazil this summer, expected to return in Madrid following Ivanovic’s suspension.<\/p>\n

But Mourinho is reluctant to shift Azpilicueta – a right-back before this season – from the left, where he has struck up a productive relationship with Eden Hazard.<\/p>\n

Belgium star Hazard remains a significant doubt for Tuesday’s match, after being ruled out of the home meeting with Sunderland on Saturday.<\/p>\n

England chief Hodgson will find it difficult to justify including Cole for the trip to Brazil when he has effectively not played for the final four months of the season.<\/p>\n

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Jose Mourinho is ready to take a huge Champions League gamble by leaving Ashley Cole out of his side to visit Atletico Madrid for next week’s semi-final first leg. In a move that would effectively spell the end of Cole\u2019s Chelsea career – and probably kill his World Cup hopes – boss Mourinho is considering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3628"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3638,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions\/3638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}