Bournemouth preview, who will we see play?
Thomas Tuchel has a lot more stars to chose from now, I'll have a go at the impossible starting Xl!
Tonight, Chelsea travel to Bournemouth for their first real pre-season friendly and good news folks, it WILL be televised!
7.45 kick off UK time, and you can watch it on the 5th stand app, or on the Chelsea website.
Thomas Tuchel has more players to chose from now after more of the Euros guys joined back in training over the weekend including the likes of Kurt Zouma, Antonio Rudiger, Timo Werner, and Kai Havertz, but I do still expect him to select most of the fringe guys who he is having a close look at, and of course the English and Italians are not back just yet, although Thiago Silva was flying back to London on Monday afternoon so he will soon be involved.
I don’t think any of the returning Euros players will come in and start after just a couple of training sessions.
So I’ll have a go at attempting a predicted line up, but you cannot judge me if this is horribly wrong!
I have been getting a bit of feedback on training sessions, so some of this guesswork is based on what I have heard to be happening so far, BUT I must say, I am still not fully clear on the formation as I’m told they’ve still been working on both 4 at the back and 3 at the back, with the latter being most heavily worked on ahead of tonight’s match.
So for the purpose of comfortability, I’ll go with 3 at the back now some more centre backs have returned.
My predicted line up vs Bournemouth tonight:
(3-4-3) - Mendy, Chalobah, Clarke-Salter, Sarr. Sterling, Loftus-Cheek, Gallagher, Alonso. Hudson-Odoi (left), Ziyech, Broja.
Obviously as it is a friendly there will be plenty of changes and we could see two different teams for each half, but this is my absolute guess at who might start, it could be totally different!
There is a chance we might see some of the Euros guys on the bench, but I’m not so sure.
Simon Phillips