N’Golo Kante is back for Chelsea against Everton on Thursday evening, but the guy who has not been available for less than half of Thomas Tuchel’s matches in charge of Chelsea so far will still not be available to start again just yet.
Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that he will be back on the bench from the start of the game, but not a bad guy to call upon should we need it, let’s hope we don’t though.
Trevoh Chalobah is also back in the squad Thursday, as confirmed by Tuchel. But I can’t see him being ready to play from the off either just yet.
So really, this still leaves Chelsea with selection problems and absentees, and looking at those available, it’s looking like it will be Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Jorginho once again as the midfield two, with Reece James and Marcos Alonso either side of them.
It would be nice to rotate some of those, especially Alonso, but with there clearly not being any trust un Saul Niguez even when he played at left wing back, there are literally still no other options really.
Our fringe players have just not been stepping up when called on, which is far from ideal and could end up forcing us to overplay other players like Jorginho, who has been playing with back pain himself.
At the back, I believe we will see Edouard Mendy in goal, with Andreas Christensen on the right, Thiago Silva in the middle, and Antonio Rudiger on the left. Again though, it’s not ideal having to pick Silva every game, and this might force us to see Cesar Azpilicueta selected at right centre back, with Christensen moving to the middle.
I expect Tuchel to go with the same 3-4-1-2 line up we have been seeing, so ahead of the midfield four I expect to see Mason Mount keep his place in the 10 role after a good few performances of late, then ahead of him I think Romelu Lukaku WILL start this one alongside Timo Werner.
Lukaku has looked off it recently, and this is a great chance for him to build some momentum and form back to his game. Let’s hope he is back in peak condition as well because even that hasn’t looked right since his injury.
So to sum up, I expect to see this tomorrow night:
(3-4-1-2): Mendy: Christensen, Silva, Rudiger: James, Jorginho, Loftus-Cheek, Alonso: Mount: Werner, Lukaku.