please log in to view this image Chelsea v Leeds Utd Saturday 11th December@15:00 | Stamford Bridge Leeds face a torrid Christmas calendar, starting with a trip to Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon. Whilst Bielsa's men rarely pick up too many points in the Capital, their task is made even harder by their ever-growing injury list. Liam Cooper and Kalvin Phillips are long term absentees, plus Pascal Struijk is still struggling with an ankle injury. Teen sensation Charlie Cresswell would be a perfect replacement for the Leeds skipper, however Bielsa is more likely to draft Luke Ayling to centre back (to partner Llorente), with Dallas switching to right back. Kalvin Phillips will be a major loss in the holding role. Leeds have only won twice, out of twelve attempts without the England talisman in the starting line up. Fortunately, Adam Forshaw is a like for like replacement, so at Least Leeds won't lose their shape. The extra midfield role is likely to go to record signing Rodrigo. Both he and Klich were left out of the starting line up at the weekend as Leeds adopted a 3-4-3 formation for the first time this season. It remains to be seen whether Patrick Bamford recovers from his hamstring tweak he sustained last weekend in his goal celebration. Tyler Roberts who rediscovered his scoring touch against Brentford stands by. There is no room for Joe Gelhardt who must be wondering what he has to do, to get some game time. Fresh from their 3-3 draw at Zenit Saint Petersburg on Wednesday evening, Chelsea have no new injury concerns. They'll be looking to get back to winning ways after losing to a last gasp winner at local rivals West Ham last weekend, and were leap-frogged by Liverpool in the process. Trevoh Chalobah (hamstring), N'Golo Kante (knee) and Jorginho (back) are rated as doubtful, but 90m rated Romelu Lakaku is set to start against the Whites having returned midweek from a three month lay off.
I've never felt so deflated heading towards a game, we're out of sorts, team selection is anyone's guess at the moment, Chelsea are on form and it is in London
Chelski lost to Citeh at home and drew with Manure and Burnley. Our next two games are freebies so anything we get is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. This would be the week of death for any team. Some of you guys might need to hide the knives.
Actually I’d say they are a bit out of form. They probably should have won at West Ham, but the spammers have a habit of getting results from the wrong end of the stats. They were outplayed by Watford though and really lucky to get the points. Despite that, It’s a shot to nothing. Injury ravaged against a much better side. hey we won at city last year with 10 men so stranger things have happened.
But… These are the games we need to start performing in and snatching points if we want to start finishing in the top half. We’ve all virtually admitted no points expected now until the New Year. Last season was what, a fluke? I know we wanted year on year progress and steadily upgrading the squad but it feels we’ve just blown a whole lot of budget in two seasons. Yes we can point to Raphinha, Meslier and Llorente but the rest are very questionable. Feels like a huge backward step this season
Honestly rich I get where you're coming from but unfortunately the random fixture list computer (yeh right) has thrown up the 3 hardest away fixtures one after another. Chelsea (a) Man City (a) Liverpool (a) Put simply, they are the three best sides in the PL and probably Europe as well. So whatever happens over the course of those games we just have to take it on the chin and move on. 20 points after 20 games will do for me.
I think the worrying thing this season is so far no one has been cut adrift. Last year West Brom and Sheff U always looked like they were going from early on so everyone else was avoiding just the one place. Very tight down there at the moment.
Every game in the PL is tough but those three away fixtures are particularly tough. Only WHU and Brighton have lost less games than those 3 combined, and Brighton have drawn more than half of theirs. They are head and shoulders above everyone else. Even with a full strength team I think we'd struggle to get anything but who knows. Anyone who does the prediction league knows about strange results. I hope we don't get hammered and if we could snatch a couple of points it would be exceptional. We've been very unlucky with our Christmas fixtures but looking at it another way, they will be behind us.
