Things haven’t gone very well for Chelsea this season, to put it mildly. We are not in Europe and we are rooted in the middle of the league table. At this moment, despite the billions spent, at this moment we are looking more towards the relegation zone than towards the European places.
Our only chance of glory remains the EFL Cup, where some lucky draws have taken us to the quarter-finals next week against Newcastle United.
They are a strong team, but the game is at Stamford Bridge and not St James’ Park, which at least gives us a chance.
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But whether you’re looking for tickets to the game or simply purchasing an online stream, you can expect an interesting match. Newcastle are a much better team than us, as they showed in our league game a couple of weeks ago. But they are looking increasingly devastated by their European schedule, and suffered more devastating injuries today against Fulham, with Fabian Schar and Joelinton both missing the game injured.
Eddie Howe has some big decisions to make, given the overall fatigue and injury situation. Will he risk everything in the match against us, or will he weaken his team and effectively throw away the match to maintain his strength for a league campaign that they will be desperate to conclude with at least a Champions League? place. With Manchester City dropping points once again today, Newcastle should not rule themselves out of a title race either, if they can find the form they had earlier this season.
Most positive of all for Chelsea in terms of our lineup: Christopher Nkunku’s time may finally have come. The Frenchman was on the bench for today’s game against Sheffield United, but from what we could see, his presence was more of a morale-boosting gesture than anything else. Mauricio Pochettino admitted after the match that he was relieved not to have to use it at all.
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Let’s not expect him to play too many minutes against the Magpies, but we’re almost certain this will be his competitive debut for us, probably as a second-half substitute.
Let’s hope that by the time he comes on we’ll be a couple of goals up against a weakened Newcastle, and moving towards victory and a first semi-final with Pochettino… is that too much to ask?
