Date: Tuesday 20th
April 2021
Venue: Stamford Bridge
Kick-off: 20:00 BST
After all the hard
work at the weekend to beat Manchester City and secure our place in an FA Cup
final we don’t know we’ll be able to take part in, tonight it’s Brighton in the
Premier League, which we also don’t know we’ll be allowed to be part of. It’s a
funny old game.
We currently sit fifth in the table and a win tonight would be most welcome given both West Ham above us and Liverpool below us have dropped points but does any of that really matter? We don’t know but it does feel a bit daft thinking about pushing for fourth place somehow. As for the visitors, who have no worries about playing in the Premier League next season, I’m sure they’ll relish the prospect of kicking the backsides of an ‘elite’, ‘super six’ club, even if most of us would really rather we were still just Chelsea FC who play in the Premier League.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into today’s game
Thomas Tuchel, says “I
expect Andreas to be back and to be available, he trained very well (Sunday)
and I hope this will continue. Thiago Silva, we’ll see if it makes sense that
he starts or in on the bench, not because of injury but because of acute
overload, with two games after his recent injury. So I hope that it’s only Kova
(Kovacic) that we have out with injury.”
Brighton manager, Graham Potter,
says “It’s going to be a tough game, that’s for sure. We are playing against a team that’s in as
good a moment as anybody in probably European football. And I think that is credit to Thomas Tuchel
and the players there and the staff because they’ve got into the Champions
League last four – they did really well against Porto – and then to beat
Manchester City (in the FA Cup semi-finals) is not easy. They’ve done really well and we’re not at
their level – that’s fair to say, there’s no disrespect to us in terms of there
is a big gap between quality and points.
But we hope on the day we can be competitive and we want to try and get
a positive result.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Chelsea, Mateo Kovacic (hamstring) remains out, although Andreas Christensen (muscle)
should be back. Thiago Silva could be rested.
For Brighton, Tariq Lamptey (hamstring) and Solly March (knee)
remain out. Aaron Connolly (foot) is fit, Percy Tau could feature, and Adam Webster
and Dan Burn are in contention to start.
TEAMS
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Mendy; Azpilicueta, Zouma, Rudiger; James, Jorginho, Kante, Chilwell; Mount;
Havertz, Pulisic
BRIGHTON (Possible
line-up): Sanchez; White, Dunk, Veltman; Gross, Lallana, Bissouma, Moder;
Trossard, Maupay, Welbeck
CURRENT FORM (PL)
CHELSEA: DWWDLW
BRIGHTON: LLWWLD
OTHER STUFF
- Chelsea are
unbeaten in 14 games against Brighton
- Chelsea have won
all six competitive home fixtures against Brighton.
- Chelsea have
dropped points in eight of their 15 home league games.
- Chelsea have kept
14 clean sheets in 19 competitive matches
- Brighton have only
won twice in nine league matches.
- Brighton have five
top-flight away wins this season
- Brighton have kept
10 clean sheets in the Premier League this season.
- Brighton have dropped 20 points from a winning position this campaign
PREDICTION
Sportsmole: Chelsea 2-1 Brighton
