Venue: Stamford Bridge
Date: Tuesday 23 November
Kick-off: 1945 GMT
After some disappointing results in the Premier League, tonight’s Champions League game at home to Zilina not only offers us the opportunity to play with a little less pressure, it also gives us a look at what our younger players have to offer.
With us already safely qualified from Group F, Carlo Ancelotti plans to give our uninjured senior players a bit of a breather and give some of our younger players an opportunity to show him what they’ve got. Pavel Hapal doesn’t plan on giving them an easy time though and even with his side needing a bit of a miracle to qualify now, hopes that a counter-attacking game against us could give Zilina the points they desperately need.
MANAGERS’ VIEWS
Aside from fending off recent rumours about his future at Stamford Bridge, ahead of tonight’s game, Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti insists “Our aim in the Champions League is to win the group. Obviously we want to have control and we want to close out this group. We don’t want to have a surprise in the last game against Marseille. We have a great chance to win the group tomorrow night. At the moment everything seems wrong. But we are at the top of the table and we have won all four games in the Champions League
. The problem is on the pitch. This season we shoot 200 times on the goal. The first ten times we shot we had 21% average converted, the last 100 shots, we had just 5% converted on goal, so this is the reason we need to be more focused and concentrating on shots. The play of the team did not change. That is the reason and there we have to work.”
Zilina boss Pavel Hapal, meanwhile talks us up a bit whilst holding onto some hope of an upset, stating “I don’t care at all about Chelsea’s recent form. Chelsea is a giant, a team of fantastic players who are the best in the world. It may be a little bit similar to the last game but we have to change and play a counter-attacking style and be a bit dangerous. We have got enough players who are good enough in attacking positions. We appreciate the quality of the Chelsea team who maybe one of the best teams in the world. We tried our best to beat them but we lost in the end. We know the Chelsea players and all of them are of a very good quality. There is no chance that we don’t know a player from Chelsea.”
SQUAD NEWS
On the injury front for us, John Terry (thigh); Frank Lampard (tendon), Yury Zhirkov (calf), John Mikel Obi (knee),and Yossi Benayoun (Achilles) all miss out. Petr Cech, Alex, Anelka and Ashley Cole are all likely to be rested although Essien is available. Midfielder Josh McEachran will be given his first start with Jeffrey Bruma also likely to start alongside Branislav Ivanovic in defence.
Zilina have no fresh injury worries ahead of the game.
CHELSEA TEAM (from): Turnbull, Hilario, Cech, Ferreira, Bosingwa, Bruma, Ivanovic, Cole, Van Aanholt, Ramires, Essien, McEachran, Malouda, Drogba, Kalou, Kakuta, Sturridge, Borini, Sala.
LAST MEETING
Zilina 1-4 Chelsea (September 15th 2010)
PREDICTION
I give up! You tell me.
Blue is the colour
