Carlo Ancelotti Confirms James Rodriguez Will Miss Chelsea Clash

Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti has confirmed James Rodriguez will sit out of Saturday's visit of Chelsea, though doesn't fear the Colombian is suffering from a serious injury.

The Toffees have encountered a minor slump in form following their blockbuster start to the season, winning just one of their last seven matches - away to struggling Fulham - after taking a maximum 12 points from their opening four games.

Rodriguez has started ten of their 11 Premier League matches this term, largely putting the injury problems that plagued him at Real Madrid behind him to become a key figure for Ancelotti's team.

The flipside of that is how they have struggled on the rare occasion that he hasn't been available - they were pretty abject in the trip to Newcastle when a minor knock kept him on the sidelines.

Everton face Chelsea at Goodison Park in Saturday's late kick-off and Ancelotti has confirmed that Seamus Coleman and Fabian Delph will sit the game out alongside Rodriguez, who has been unable to train for a week.

"We have three players not available, one is Coleman," Ancelotti told reporters, quoted by Everton's Twitter account. "He started this week to train with the team, he's quite good but I think that he will be available for the next game against Leicester on Wednesday. We have Delph out, who suffered an injury against Burnley.

"We have James out, who had a little problem in the game against Burnley. He was not able to train this week, I think he will start to train next week. For this game, we don't want to take a risk."

When pushed to elaborate on Rodriguez, he confirmed the injury is 'nothing special' - leaving hope that he'll be available for the trip to Leicester next Wednesday.