Chelsea had brought in Frank Lampard as their interim manager in the hopes that he will able to steady the ship but nothing of that has happened.
The Blues are winless in their last seven matches across all competitions and their next opponent is Brentford, a team who have a very similar record but are still ahead of Lampard’s team on the Premier League table.
Chelsea have been knocked out of the Champions League and they are currently 11th on the table meaning their top-tier European hopes for the next season are very much over.
The only thing they can do right now is to win their remaining league matches and make sure that they finish as close to the top four as possible. The Bees are in really poor form themselves so Chelsea should be able to beat them rather easily but in all honesty it’s very hard to predict the outcome simply cause Lampard’s side are in complete shambles.
Chelsea’s team news and injuries:
Kalidou Koulibaly is currently out with a muscle injury and we don’t think he will be fit in time to face the Bees. Quite naturally, Lampard had used a three-man central defence against Madrid but this week, he is likely to revert to a 4-2-3-1 which means Fofana and Silva will pair up in the middle.
The interim boss tried to pack up the midfield in that Madrid defeat and this saw, Enzo, Kovacic, Kante and Gallagher all getting starts.
A change in formation means Gallagher will definitely move back to the bench and if Lampard favours Mason Mount in the No 10 role then N’Golo Kante won’t get game time either.
Joao Felix, Mykhaylo Mudryk and Raheem Sterling all came off the bench against Real Madrid but we think this attacking trio is going to get a start in midweek.
Havertz has been massively underwhelming this season so it won’t hurt to keep using Joao Felix as the main centre-forward. He adds a new dimension to Chelsea’s attack and combined with Mudryk’s pace, the Blues could finally get their goalscoring form back.
Sterling has been below average as well but we think the Chelsea boss is going to favour him on the right wing instead of Ziyech or Christian Pulisic.
Chelsea predicted line up vs Brentford:
Predicted Starting line up(4-2-3-1-): Kepa; Thiago Silva, Fofana, Ben Chilwell, Reece James; Enzo Fernandes, Kovacic; Mount/Kante, Sterling, Mudryk; Joao Felix.
