Chelsea were held to a 2-2 draw by Burnley at the weekend and those two dropped points mean the Blues are currently 12th on the Premier League table.
There’s no respite for Pochettino’s men because on Thursday night they take on Manchester United who are having a similar mixed-bag season so this one will be a very tightly fought contest. Chelsea have played two games less than the teams around them meaning if they can win both of them they could go within two points of Man United.
Chelsea are undefeated in their previous five outings but they have not been able to beat Manchester United, in their last seven meetings. The last time they won against the Red Devils was back in July of 2020 in the FA Cup.
Even though this is a home game for the Blues, it’s very hard to pitch them as the favourites. In fact, if Man United can play like they played against Liverpool before the break then Chelsea will be in heaps of trouble. Also, the London outfit have failed to keep a clean sheet in their previous 11 matches.
Chelsea’s team news and injuries:
Trevoh Chalobah and Malo Gusto are back in training so they should be available to play but Ben Chilwell has not been part of the squad this week which means the left-back is going to miss out.
Robert Sanchez has also resumed training but there are still question marks over his selection for the United game.
‘Trevoh and Malo were training with us and I think they will be ready to be involved with us in the squad,’ said Pochettino in his pre-match press conference.
‘We haven’t seen Chilly since Friday. That is the last time we saw him because the doctor and the medical staff removed from his knee a lot of fluid. That was the situation after he arrived from the national team and then on Saturday he got ill and wasn’t here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today. He is at home trying to recover.
‘Robert is training, we will see if he can be on the squad list or not.’
Chalobah and Gusto are the only two positives for the Chelsea manager because other than the pair no other injured player will return on Thursday night.
Frankly speaking, Pochettino does not have the luxury to make any major changes to his starting line up that faced Burnley but he will be hoping that his attackers match up to the level of Cole Palmer. Palmer has been the lone shining spark for Chelsea this season and the 21-year-old has already netted 13 goals in 25 Premier League appearances.
Poch will be pinning his hopes on young Palmer once again but if Chelsea want to beat Man United on Thursday night then others like Sterling, Jackson and Gallagher will have to level up their performances.
Chelsea predicted line up vs Man United:
Predicted line up(4-2-3-1): Petrovic; Cucurella, Badiashile, Disasi, Gusto; Enzo, Caicedo; Mudryk/Gallagher, Sterling, Cole Palmer; Jackson.
