Blokhin Worried About Injuries

Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin is not an optimistic man at the moment. In addition to worrying about the health of star striker Andriy Shevchenko he is concerned with mounting injuries in his backline.

“Unfortunately, the mood at the moment is not terribly good. In the qualifying games we had only one or two injured players but now we are beginning to feel the impact,” he said. “Things in the forward line and in midfield are more or less all right, but we have serious problems with the defenders. We will practically have to build our defence from the ground up. For three years we have been unable to solve the problem at right back. We have too few candidates to draw on.”

Blokhin said that if defender Serhiy Fyodorov is unable to gain his fitness he will replace him with Dmitri Chigrinsky from Shakhtar Donetsk.