Robben on target to face Barcelona

The doctor treating Arjen Robben hopes the Chelsea winger will be fit to face Barcelona in the Champions' League at Stamford Bridge next week.

The Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, will be desperate to get Robben back to improve his side's chances of overturning the 2-1 first-leg deficit.

Robben sustained a double fracture in his left foot in the 1-0 victory away to Blackburn Rovers on 2 February and medical experts predicted he would be out for six weeks. But Jean-Pierre Meersseman, the Belgian chiropractor who has been treating Robben, believes the Dutchman has a chance of facing Barcelona on 8 March.

"I hope he can be back in time to play against Barcelona and I will try to help him make that happen," Meersseman, the medical co-ordinator at Milan, said yesterday. I put everything right with Arjen's foot the last time I saw him 12 days ago. It was an obvious correction and easy to perform. He had a fracture on the cuboid bone and his third metatarsal.

"I corrected one fracture and we adjusted the bones around it. I also needed to balance the muscles and we worked on his posture too.

"I know he was pleased with what I did and now he is running again. I am due to see him one more time again in the next few days."

Chelsea have stuttered since Robben's injury and have lost their free-scoring form, despite winning the Carling Cup yesterday. They struggled to break down Liverpool and had to rely on Steven Gerrard's own goal to take the match to extra time.