Watching the traditionally pedestrian community shield from the Wembley press box, there appeared to be one glaring omission — a striker wearing blue.

With Andriy Shevchenko, Salomon Kalou and most worryingly Didier Drogba injured, Jose Mourinho elected to leave new boy Claudio Pizarro on the bench and start winger Joe Cole up front.

Bar an encouragingly robust performance from new signing Florent Malouda, Chelsea were toothless up front. Which raises the question, in chasing a Manchester United team bolstered by Carlos Tevez, are the champions of two seasons ago too light on numbers?

A year ago, Mourinho defied the modern day belief that only big squads challenge for trophies, saying, “We want a smaller squad than last year, high on quality and short on numbers.”

Out went William Gallas, Robert Huth, Damien Duff, Tiago, Hernan Crespo and Eidur Gudjohnsen as the Chelsea boss trimmed the squad to the desired “20 outfield players with a minimum of four under-21″.

Injuries then left Chelseas squad so bare that their manager toyed with using third choice goalkeeper Hilario as a reserve striker for the Cup final, and their deliberate lack of depth left Chelsea Blog searching for a Plan B last January.

As a more acute injury crisis hits John Terry, Claude Makelele, Arjen Robben and Michael Ballack are also sidelined have Chelsea not learned their lesson? Are they still two or three signings short of covering potential injury woes?

Perhaps the answer lay somewhere beside the two goalkeepers who warmed the Chelsea bench on Sunday.

Padraic Halpin, London