Antonio Conte’s men have flown down to Italy in order to take on an in-form Roma side. Eusebio Di Francesco’s team are currently fifth on the Serie A table and have conceded only 5 goals in their first 10 games – the best record in the league this current season. So clearly Chelsea will have their work cut out tonight in trying to break down the Roma defence.
But Antonio Conte’s main aim of the night will most certainly be to return back to London with atleast a point in the bag. And in order to do this, he will have to field his strongest XI in the Stadio Olimpico. Conte has already said that his full focus as of now in on the Roma clash as he is not thinking about the weekend clash against Manchester United.
Here are two players which we think should be benched if Chelsea want to avoid a stalemate:
1. ALVARO MORATA:
The Spaniard had a wonderful start to Chelsea career – scoring six goals in his first eight top-flight matches. But since then his goal scoring graph has been going downhill. For the last couple of matches he has been looking completely winded and against Bournemouth, he came up with a very below average performance. Morata missed a series of chances at the Vitality Stadium and this is something which is not expected from such a high profile striker.
On the other hand, Michy Batshuayi has been itching to get a regular start in the starting line up. And whenever he has gotten the chance the Belgian has performed very well. So we think that against Roma, Conte should push Morata to the substitution bench and give Michy Batshuayi a start.
2. TIEMOUE BAKAYOKO:
Another player that should be dropped during tonight’s fixture is Tiemoue Bakayoko. While the player has bag loads of energy but his bad decision making has been costing his team every now and then. He has this tendency of lunging into rash challenges which leads to giving away free kicks at very dangerous positions. And with the amount of pace and height that Roma possesses these free kicks can badly hurt Chelsea.
Another big reason why Bakayoko should be dropped is the fact that he tends to expose the frailties of Cesc Fabregas. The Spaniard prefers to have N’Golo Kante as his midfield partner because he knows that Kante will always have his back.
