Just days after colliding in this season’s FA Cup Final, Chelsea now welcome Leicester City to Stamford Bridge in a blockbuster Tuesday Night Football clash in the race for the Premier League’s top four.
Victory would see Chelsea climb above Leicester into third and move onto the verge of qualifying for next season’s Champions League.
Leicester however can secure third with a win and assure themselves of a place in next season’s Champions League, ahead of their final day clash against Tottenham.
Team News
Chelsea have no fresh injury concerns to report after suffering defeat in Saturday’s FA Cup Final.
Mateo Kovacic (hamstring) and Andreas Christiansen (thigh) could both return if pass late fitness tests, having not been risked at Wembley.
Thomas Tuchel however is set to rotate his squad with Ben Chilwell, Billy Gilmour and Olivier Giroud all in contention to start this game, having been named on the bench on Saturday.
Leicester will be without Jonny Evans after the defender suffered a recurrence of his heel injury during the first half of Saturday’s FA Cup victory.
Brendan Rogers could opt to rotate his squad with Ricardo Pereira James Maddison, and Dennis Praet all set to start, having been named amongst the substitutes at Wembley.
Cengiz Under (hip), James Justin and Harvey Barnes (both knee) are ruled out.
Stat Attack
- Chelsea are winless in their last six league meetings against Leicester (D4, L2) and are yet to lose three consecutive matches to the Foxes across all competitions.
- Leicester have lost just one of their last five trips to Stamford Bridge (W1, D3, L1).
- Brendan Rogers’ Foxes are looking to do the league double over Chelsea for the first time since 2000-01 season.
- Five of Timo Werner’s 30 shots on target have hit the woodwork in the Premier League this season for Chelsea.
- James Maddison has been substituted more times during this league campaign than any other Leicester player, having been benched in 11 of his 22 starts.
Prediction
Following a thrilling FA Cup Final on Saturday, this game does have a lot to live up to and especially with both managers likely to rotate their starting line-ups.
Chelsea were dominant in how they played out from the back and created numerous opportunities, yet they just lacked the end product and substitutional impact until it was too late even without the eventual misfortune of VAR denying them an equaliser.
Leicester meanwhile will come here fully motivated because although they clinically snatched victory on Saturday, they now have the chance to make more history against the Blues who they seem to have good form against in recent seasons.
A top four finish however is the main focus of both teams but if Chelsea field a similar team that lost to Arsenal last Wednesday, Leicester should fancy their chances if can be clinical as Chelsea look to have dipped into a sudden rut in their end product play.
Prediction: Chelsea 0-1 Leicester
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