We’re done to just one, one final game in what’s been a rather disappointing season. We enter the weekend in eighth and can finish no higher than seventh. We could however drop as low as tenth. Seventh and eighth places would entail some European football next season, Europa League for the former and Conference League for the latter.
For Europa to happen, we’ll need to win and have Brighton drop points against Manchester United. If we only manage a draw, things get complicated. If we lose, Conference League will be the best we could hope for.
It’s been a long season and everyone’s tired, beat up, and just ready to be done I’m sure. But hopefully we don’t just phone it in. There is something at stake here, and Xabi Alonso will surely be watching (if that helps with motivation).
João Pedro missed out with a knock midweek while Levi Colwill was rested, but they both should be available this weekend. Reece James could also be back in contention.
“João and Levi both trained today (Friday) and that’s really promising. We have another day of training tomorrow, so we will see how they are after that but we’re hopeful they’ll both be fit for Sunday.”
“Reece trained today and we’ll play it day by day with him. He’s fit and in a good condition but we know that we’ve had to manage Reece correctly over the last few games. He obviously played a lot of minutes in the [FA Cup] final, which was a tough game against a really good side so it was going to take a lot out of him, so we didn’t want to risk him on Tuesday. We felt like we had enough to see the game out, which proved to be correct, and we’re hoping to have Reece available on Sunday.”
-Calum McFarlane; source: Chelsea FC
