Ray Wilkins has announced Jose Bosingwa will miss the World Cup, and is due to have another operation on his knee injury, keeping him out of the World Cup.

The Portuguese defender has not played for Chelsea since limping off against Aston Villa in October, and will now have to sit out this summer's tournament in South Africa as well as the rest of the club season.

'Bosingwa will be out for the season and have another operation, so that's him unfortunately, and he'll miss the World Cup as well,' Wilkins said, adding that the injury 'just needs clearing up.'

In other injury news Ricardo Carvalho is a doubt for the weekend after withdrawing from Portugal duty in midweek, but Wilkins is optimistic that the centre-half could be involved against Stoke on Sunday.

'We have been very fortunate that most players have come back in fine form from the internationals during the week, and there is only Riccy Carvalho that has a slight problem with his hamstring, a little bit of tightness but we'll have a look at that today and see if he'll be okay for Sunday,' said the assistant manager, before discussing the rest of the absentees.

'Michael Essien is doing well, there has been a slight complication which means it needs a couple of weeks longer but he's out [in France] with Ashley [Cole] now and they're both doing extremely well, so from that point of view we're delighted with their recovery.

'It's difficult to give a timescale but hopefully he'll be fit as soon as possible because when we lose players of that quality it is damning on any side,' Wilkins said.

'Petr [Cech] is doing very well indeed, he was doing some half-squats yesterday in the water, and he's coming on very well.'

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