Andriy Shevchenko's final Chelsea chance
Andriy Shevchenko will have one final opportunity to prove his worth at Chelsea before the club look to offload a player they paid £30.9 million for just 18 months ago.
The Ukrainian striker, 31, has not been able to force his way in to Avram Grant's rejuvenated side, who have now gone 14 games unbeaten in all competitions, and once more had to watch from the bench as Chelsea beat West Ham United 1-0 at the weekend.
Shevchenko grew frustrated at his frosty relationship with Jose Mourinho, who also used the striker sparingly in his time in charge, and had hoped that the Portuguese's departure and the appointment of Grant would lead to more playing time for him.
Grant has instead preferred both Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou ahead of Shevchenko, with some success, and the Ukrainian privately admits he may have to look elsewhere for regular first team football.
However, both first choice strikers are set to be missing for anything up to five weeks during January and February on African Nations Cup duty with Ivory Coast.
And that may present Shevchenko with a final opportunity to convince both Grant and good friend Roman Abramovich that his is still worth the enormous fee paid for him in 2005.
"Everybody needs to respect Shevchenko," said Grant. "He is one of the best strikers in the history of football. He belongs to our team."
"At the moment he is not playing but that does not mean he will not in the future. Sometimes you feel one player is ready to play and another is not."
"When you come to a big club and you have so many big strikers, sometimes there are big names that don't play for a period of time."
"He is not depressed. I can only judge players by what I hear when they speak to me or what I see in training. he is happy in training and he is training very well."
Despite Grant's words of assurance it is expected that Chelsea will make a January transfer move for Bolton striker Nicolas Anelka, meaning Shevchenko would have fresh competition for the start he craves.
The Frenchman would be available for £10 million and his wages would be substantially less than that paid to the Ukrainian, one of the top earners at the club
Shevchenko has only started four games this season and the player has already been touted to his former club AC Milan. Though Chelsea are prepared to take a substantial loss on any transfer, the expected asking price of around £10 million has put off the Serie A side as well as their city rivals Inter and Juventus.
Dynamo Kiev would be interested in bringing Shevchenko back to the place where he first made his reputation but reports have suggested his American wife Kristen has told him that her preferred option would be the semi-retirement of Major League Soccer.
With New York Red Bulls and New England Revolution both in the market for a big name to rival David Beckham at LA Galaxy, Shevchenko would not be short of lucrative offers. Each team is allowed one player exempt from the league wide salary cap.
Shevchenko is still hopeful of turning around his career at Chelsea and seeing out the remainder of his contract and proving himself to the English public.
That appears increasingly unlikely unless he can take advantage of the African players' absence to stake a first-team claim.
"One of the reasons I have not rushed to make a decision on signing during the African Nations Cup is we have good strikers in Shevchenko and Claudio Pizarro," said Grant.
"They are in the squad because they will be useful during that period - but not just then. I want him to be useful this month as well."
Telegraph