+ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article3001452.ece

December 5, 2007

Avram Grant sets tentative return for Michael Ballack, Chelsea’s mystery man
Matt Hughes

Avram Grant has challenged Michael Ballack to prove his fitness to return to the Chelsea squad in time for the congested Christmas programme. The Germany midfield player will resume training with the first team today after seven months out with an ankle injury and is hoping to make his comeback before the end of the year.

Grant views Ballack, 31, as a valuable member of his squad, although he harbours doubts about whether he can regain his best form after such a long spell on the sidelines at a relatively late stage in his career. With this in mind, the Chelsea first-team coach has instructed his staff to run Ballack into the ground over the next fortnight in the hope that he will demonstrate his readiness to return later in the month.

Grant is planning to give Ballack a reintroduction to the Barclays Premier League during the Christmas period, with Chelsea’s match away to Blackburn Rovers on December 23 pencilled in for his comeback, in the hope that he will be fully fit when Michael Essien and John Obi Mikel depart for the African Cup of Nations in January. The Israeli also believes that Ballack is capable of playing off a central striker in a 4-4-1-1 formation that, over time, will become his favoured option.

Such plans are contingent on the success of Ballack’s rehabilitation, which continued yesterday when he played his second match for the reserves, 80 minutes against Southend United, after getting in 45 minutes against Birmingham City last week. The former Bayern Munich midfield player has not played for the first team since suffering an ankle injury in the league match against Newcastle United in April and has endured repeated setbacks in his attempts to get over a mysterious ailment.

Ballack was initially expected to be out only for a matter of weeks, with José Mourinho, the manager at the time, demanding that he delay an operation to make himself available for last season’s Champions League semi-final against Liverpool, but, after a second opinion from Hans Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, the Germany team doctor, he had surgery.

Ballack had to have another operation after breaking down during the summer and, despite being told repeatedly that he was only three to four weeks away at the start of the season, was left out of Chelsea’s 23-man Champions League squad because the club’s medical staff could not provide a definite return date.

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