Chelsea’s team for today’s game against Nottingham Forest is out, and it’s the exact XI you’d expect from Enzo Maresca.
The Chelsea boss has figured out the team he likes, and the lack of injuries plus the fact he can play a fully rotated team in midweeks means that he gets to select the same XI for league games week in, week out at the moment.
That’s great for the players being picked – they know they’re the top dogs, and they’re totally fresh every time they step on the pitch, which seems to be bringing good performances out of them. Reece James is our only currently injured player, making life easy for Maresca in terms of selection.
But eventually something will change – form or fitness or injury – to force alterations to this preferred XI. In fact, even before that we forsee a change for our next game.
Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo will both be jetting off to South America to play international games this fortnight, and that means as usual they’ll return on a long flight as late as Thursday, making selection for the game against Liverpool later this month tricky.
The good news is that Romeo Lavia is waiting in the wings after recovering from his own injury. He will get probably 30 minutes today to keep him up to speed, and is surely in line for a start replacing one of his South American colleagues next time out, depending on who comes back later or plays more minutes out there.
Maresca will weigh up physical and tactical considerations
There will be tactical considerations too – perhaps Caicedo is just a better fit alongside Lavia if we want to open the game cautiously, with the Ecuador star then replaced by Fernandez later on as we try to open things up.
Whatever Maresca goes for, we don’t expect this same side to be copy-pasted in two weeks at Anfield.
