Chelsea vs. Benfica, Champions League: You choose the starting lineup
The Champions League returns to Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night, and perhaps quite fittingly, its return will feature a certain José Mourinho, who just recently took charge of Benfica. José, as he says, will always be Blue, except of course during this game. He’s had good days and bad with other teams at the Bridge; we can only hope this will be more of the latter for him.
In order to make that happen, we’re going to have to stop all the self-inflicted mistakes that have doomed us in recent weeks. Following the collapse this weekend against Brighton, featuring yet another red card, it’s now just one win from the last five, and even that one win was just a narrow one-goal affair against lower-league opposition.
The injuries mounting up certainly hasn’t helped, but the decision-making, both on the bench and in the dugout, has been questionable, at best. We need improvement in all those facets.
But speaking of injuries, we’re nearing almost a dozen sidelined as João Pedro, Moisés Caicedo, and Andrey Santos are facing late fitness tests, while Cole Palmer, Tosin Adarabioyo, Levi Colwill, Liam Delap, and Dário Essugo continue to be out with various short- and long-term injuries. Wesley Fofana may also miss out once again as he goes through concussion protocol from last week.
On the plus side, Benoît Badiashile and Roméo Lavia both returned to action over the weekend at long last, and while Trevoh Chalobah did get sent off, that red card only counts for domestic competitions, so he’ll be available.
Category: General Sports
