Chelsea face RB Salzburg at Stamford Bridge in just under an hour, and the teams are in!
Graham Potter’s first game as Chelsea manager – and last for a while – sees an interesting setup, starting in goal where Kepa plays ahead of Edouard Mendy.
It’s a strange looking setup at the back, with Reece James, Cesar Azpilicutea, Thiago Silva and Marc Cucurella all arranged somehow.
Ahead of them it’s a Jorginho and Kovacic double pivot, with Mason Mount, Kai Havertz and Raheem Sterling all working behind Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up top.
It’s pretty impossible to say exactly how this works until we see it out on the pitch, but with just one centre back in the side we’re left scratching our heads. It’s certainly not a back 3, we just don’t know who plays alongside Silva.
Here are the full team line-ups for Chelsea vs RB Salzburg (kick off at 20:00 pm GMT)
CHELSEA:
#Chelsea XI to face FC Salzburg: Kepa, James, Azpilicueta, Silva, Cucurella, Jorginho, Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, Aubameyang, Sterling#UCL
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) September 14, 2022
Same old players picked who don’t perform well enough not a good pick for first game
Azpilicuta should be out of the starting and use fofana or kulibali this is the only place which the coach must look about and the second place is mount play as midfielder
I think deffensively we’re not good enough according to the lineup
A new manager needs time to look around, get to know the players and figure out how to win with them. I watched the matches of Barcelona and Real Madrid against the Germans. There are almost no players of this level in Chelsea today. We have to grow them or buy them. This will take time. The main thing is patience.