Chelsea face Napoli at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in just over an hour, and the teams are in!
Here are the full team line-ups for Napoli vs Chelsea (kick off at 20:00 GMT)
CHELSEA:
Chelsea’s team to face Napoli.
Well… where do we start with that? We knew this was going to be a hard team to predict, but this is truly crazy.
There is only one recognised central defender starting for Liam Rosenior as the new manager picks the biggest team selection of his career. Both Trevoh Chalobah and Benoit Badiashile are on the bench, so it’s not an injury crisis.
Instead, it seems like the manager has gone for a radical formation shift. We’re trying to figure it out now. The best reason we can think of is that Napoli play a 3412, so maybe we’re matching them up?
That would mean a back line for Marc Cucurella, Reece James and Wesley Fofana.
Malo Gusto and Pedro Neto would be the wing backs, with Andrey Santos and Moises Caicedo in central midfield.
Then Enzo Fernandez is pushed forward, with Joao Pedro and Estevao as the strike partnership. We can’t see any other way this works – the only way to get away with having one CB is having two full backs tucked in alongside him, and we know that James and Cucurella can do this.
In other news…
Malo Gusto spoke a little about tonight’s game too – he pointed out it’s likely to be a thriller simply because both teams need to win and don’t gain anything from a draw, an unusual setup for a group stage game.
Gusto is predicted to play by the guys from the London is Blue podcast, although we’re not so sure. It’s a big call over whether to use him or Reece James at right back.
