Chelsea have once again been drawn against Manchester City in a domestic cup competition, in the same round, in the same season.
The FA Cup third round is usually a golden chance for Premier League clubs to bed in some youngsters and use some fringe players, but I’m not so sure that Graham Potter will be doing so now!
That is because we have been drawn against current league champions, Manchester City, again. The same team that knocked us out of the League Cup third round. Imagine that? What are the chances?
It really does feel like the world is piling up against Chelsea getting the exact same draw in the same round of both domestic cups this season. Chelsea also play Manchester City AGAIN just two days before this FA Cup tie, in the league. Yikes.
We could have really used a good cup run under Graham Potter this season, couldn’t we?
But Blues fans are already defeated, and you can completely understand why. Belief and confidence is at a real low right now off the back off our poor run of performances and results before the World Cup break.
There are some positives though, and we can look at those. To start with, if we have already written ourselves off, the media will have as well, and maybe we can quietly go about our business as underdogs and pull off a shock? There will be no pressure.
We mentioned City’s game against us the week before, and they have a very tough schedule around the FA Cup game, so we might see more of their stars rested than they would normally rest for us.
The other plus point is that if the inevitable happens and we crash out of the FA Cup in round three (our first round), then we will at least clear up some fixture congestions that all the other top clubs will be going through, that could be a major plus point, right? Allow us to fight harder for top four and UCL qualification, as well as the UCL itself?
Nobody has any expectations of the game and maybe that will work in our favour. Maybe we can do something here. Maybe I’ll wake up now.
