Chelsea are third, Leicester are 15th. It should be 3 points, even at the King Power. Anything less is a disappointment, and given the tough games to come against Tottenham and Aston Villa to follow, it’s essential we get them on the board.
There are more reasons than just form to be positive for. To compound the Foxes’ issues, both Jordan Ayew and Abdul Fatawu have picked up injuries on international duty with Ghana.
That’s a huge chunk of Steve Cooper’s attacking options wiped out. Against Enzo Maresca’ old team, Chelsea will be heavily favoured to have too much firepower.
Chelsea will have a fresh Reece James to unleash, and we can really see him feasting as Maresca puts his team into an attacking mode to try and score a few and end the game as a contest as early as possible.
Reece James playing for Chelsea against Newcastle. (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Kick off slot means Leicester game still has a wild card side
For all those reasons that this should be a cake-walk for Chelsea, there is a wild card element still out there which means nobody should take this lightly.
It’s not only a 12.30 kick off – which tend to produce odd results, it’s also the dreaded 12.30 kick off after an international break.
That’s a double whammy of randomising factors, and that means there’s just a little more spice to this one than there might otherwise be. Chelsea have players all over the world, and those coming back from South America are surely close to being out of contention for starts in the game given they arrive back in the early hours of Thursday or Friday in most cases.
We’ve seen a lot of games in this slot be played with a super sleepy low tempo, and that needs to be avoided.
