Winners of four straight, Chelsea come into the final third of the season as one of the hottest teams in the Premier League.
Only Manchester United have collected more points over the past five games — that one extra point has them one point ahead of us in fourth. Below, a four-point gap has opened up to Liverpool after their defeat against Manchester City over the weekend. A title challenge may be well out of our reach now, but after the wobble over the early winter, we seem to be well set for the run-in and a Champions League position by the end of the season.
Of course, we do have to keep up the pace. The job is far from done. Those below us are just waiting for a slip-up. Points against the likes of Leeds United, and Burnley coming up, are an absolute must, especially before we hit the crucial run in the spring, playing the current top-four in the span of six games.
Date / Time: Tuesday, February 10, 19.30 GMT; 2:30pm EST; 1am IST (next day)
Venue: Stamford Bridge, SW6
Referee: Rob Jones (on pitch); John Brooks (VAR)
Forecast: light rain
On TV: TNT Sports 4 (UK); Universo (USA); none (India); SuperSport Premier League (NGA); elsewhere
Streaming: discovery+ (UK); Peacock, Telemundo Deportes En Vivo (USA); JioHotstar (India); DStv Now (NGA)
Chelsea team news: Liam Rosenior continued his good start to life at Chelsea with a straightforward 3-1 win over Wolves, the worst team in the league by some distance. The match was effectively over by half-time thanks to Cole Palmer’s three goals, which allowed us to dial back the intensity a bit in the second 45, hopefully enabling us to keep the energy levels high as this relentless march of fixtures every 3-4 days continues.
The only blip(s) on Rosenior’s first month in charge have been the two legs of the League Cup semifinal against Arsenal, and our occasionally, to put it kindly, shaky defending. We’ve managed to make up for that most of the time with effective attacking, having scored two or more goals in seven of Rosenior’s nine matches in all competitions. We should be able to keep that trend going on Tuesday night. Only the bottom-three sides have given up more goals than Leeds, and they’ve kept just four clean sheets all season.
Our attack has been keyed by the in-form duo of João Pedro and Enzo Fernández, and if Cole Palmer can find a bit of fitness to build on Saturday’s hat-trick, that can only be beneficial. With our wingers seemingly all out of form at the moment, we’re going to need that trio to keep carrying the attack, and the team.
We had some good news regarding injuries, with Andrey Santos avoiding any major damage after being forced off with an ankle problem on Saturday, and both Reece James and Tosin Adarabioyo possibly available after illness and injury. Dário Essugo, Roméo Lavia, Levi Colwill, and Jamie Gittens remain out.
Leeds United team news: It’s not been a great campaign for last season’s Championship-winners, battling near the bottom of the table since the start. That said, they’ve lost just two of their last twelve league games, since the start of December, and have climbed six points clear of the relegation zone (same as Spurs, amusingly enough). That run started with a 3-1 win against Chelsea at Elland Road, our worst game of the season.
Head coach Daniel Farke doesn’t have too many injury issues to deal with, though key defender Pascal Struijk is set to miss out after picking up a hip flexor injury over the weekend in their 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest. Another big miss will be midfielder Anton Stach, while leading goalscorer Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Ilia Gruev, who collected two assists against Forest, face late fitness tests (but are looking likely to be able to play).
Facundo Buonanotte has played 24 minutes in his first four league games since joining, and was not named in the matchday squad on Friday.
Previously: Leeds’ last visit to the Bridge was nearly three years ago; Wesley Fofana scored the game’s only goal, from a corner, to give Graham Potter’s struggling Chelsea all three points. I was stood in Row 1 of The Shed for this game, didn’t see much of that!
