Chelsea continue their push for Champions League qualification against Everton in a big Premier League clash.
Victory will lift Chelsea up to fourth for at least a few hours, whilst Everton will stay 13th with a win.
Team News
Malo Gusto is ruled out for Chelsea after he suffered a muscle injury during their comeback 2-1 win at Fulham on Easter Sunday.
Wesley Fofana (muscle), Mykhailo Mudryk (suspension), Marc Guiu and Omari Kellyman (both hamstring) are still sidelined.
Everton will be without defender, James Tarkowski for the remainder of this season due to a hamstring injury suffered in their defeat to Manchester City last weekend.
Armando Broja is ineligible to feature for the Toffees against his parent club.
Orel Mangala (knee), Jesper Lindstrom (hernia) and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (hamstring) remain sidelined.
When is Kick-Off?
Chelsea host Everton at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 26 April at 12:30pm BST, live on TNT Sports 1 in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Chelsea have lost one of their last five meetings against Everton (W2, D2, L1).
- Everton are winless in their last 29 league visits to Chelsea (D13, L16).
- Chelsea are looking to keep three consecutive clean sheets against Everton for the first time since November 2016 – August 2017.
- Enzo Maresca’s Blues have kept clean sheets in three of their last four league matches at home (W3, D1).
- Since David Moyes returned as manager in January, Everton are unbeaten in two visits to the capital (W1, D1).
Prediction
With four incredibly difficult league games to conclude the season and UEFA Conference League semi-finals on the horizon, this game feels like do-or-die for Chelsea’s hopes of a top-five finish after a period of inconsistency even though they dominated with a clinical comeback at Fulham last time out.
Everton meanwhile have an awful record at Stamford Bridge and have to make do without key centre-back, Tarkowski after his injury in a valiant effort to frustrate Man City, which ultimately proved fruitless despite a solid effort but they will need to produce more of the same gutsy defensive resilience if want anything here.
David Moyes’ Toffees though have nothing to play for so will certainly be dangerous if Chelsea come into this game thinking that their visitors are mentally on the beach, but I just can’t see the hosts losing this.
Prediction: Chelsea 2-0 Everton
Result: Chelsea 1-0 Everton
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