Grant wants Anelka deal by Saturday

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Grant is desperate to recruit Anelka with Tuesday night's 2-1 Carling Cup semi-final first leg victory over Everton once again highlighting their lack of firepower.

He said: "We have confirmed our interest in Anelka. We wanted him for Tuesday and I hope that he will now get him for Saturday. If not we'll continue with the players that we have. We are missing three strikers so it's important to do it quickly."

The Blues, missing Andriy Shevchenko and Didier Drogba to injury and Salomon Kalou to the African Nations Cup, were once again forced to rely on the disappointing Claudio Pizarro.

Chelsea led through Shaun Wright-Phillips' superb first-half strike and were in full control until Mikel John Obi's 55th minute dismissal.

Referee Peter Walton reached for the red card in response to Mikel's one-footed lunge on Phil Neville, but Grant refused to be drawn into a dispute over the decision.

"If this is a red card then two or three players who got yellow cards should also have been sent off," he said. "But I don't want to say anything else about this decision because the players who played deserve to be talked about.

"I understand why I'm being asked about this but I only want to talk about the way my players performed. I'm proud of them.

"I'm happy that we won. We deserved to win and created a lot of chances in the first half. We adapted very quickly to the red card. The players deserve credit for their spirit.

"We are missing many players and they showed great spirit. They played good football."