Mourinho's injury woe

Chelsea relinquished their crown to Manchester United last season and lost the FA Community Shield at Wembley on penalties to Sir Alex Ferguson's side after their preparations were disrupted by yet more injury woe with John Terry, Salomon Kalou, Andriy Shevchenko, Claude Makelele and Michael Ballack all struggling to be fit.

Mourinho said: "When you have so many injured players, you hope one or two can be back. I would be happy to have Kalou."

The current problems meant Mourinho had to pitch Joe Cole against United's formidable back line and it was, as you would expect, no contest.

But instead of cursing his luck, Mourinho wanted to concentrate on those players who held out for a 1-1 draw in normal time before Edwin Van der Sar emerged as the United hero with three penalty saves in a one-sided shoot-out.

Mourinho said: "I am very happy with the players who took part. When you ask me about John Terry and Didier Drogba or Michael Ballack, Salomon Kalou or Claude Makelele - all of the boys who were not here - I don't want to go in that direction because I want to respect the players I had here.

"They played very well for me and I prefer to speak about them instead of the players not involved in the game.

"I now have to analyse the picture for the next two weeks to make my decisions in relation to the three matches we have to play against Birmingham, Reading and Liverpool."

United took the lead through Ryan Giggs in the 35th minute before £13.5million new signing Florent Malouda equalised just before the interval.

But the game went to penalties to decide the first trophy of the new season and Van der Sar saved from Claudio Pizarro, Frank Lampard and Shaun Wright-Phillips while Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and Wayne Rooney notched with ease for United.