Sandwiched between two big Wednesdays, Chelsea take on West Ham today at the Bridge. On paper, this is an easier matchup than either Napoli or Arsenal away. But is it any less important? Probably not!
Head coach Liam Rosenior called it the biggest game of his time in charge yet. It has the potential of being a very painful trap game, and he’s about to find out whether the players can keep their levels of effort and motivation going on a less glamorous occasion than a Champions League night or a Cup
semifinal.
For the WAGNH Community, the question of who and how much to change wasn’t easy to answer either. This has led to a fairly close to vote, with only Trevoh Chalobah, Moisés Caicedo, and Robert Sánchez emerging as obvious choices, both garnering above 90 per cent of the vote. Marc Cucurella, Enzo Fernández, Andrey Santos, Estêvão, Cole Palmer, and João Pedro got less of the vote, but also achieved clear majorities.
So that leaves two open spots in the starting XI. Reece James and Alejandro Garnacho both got just above 50 per cent, but putting both of them in there would require us to line up in the same sort of silliness we saw the first half in Naples. So let’s go with the next best option, Josh Acheampong. Sorry, Garna!
4-2-3-1 (80%)
Sánchez (95%) | Cucurella (66%), Chalobah (92%), Acheampong (48%), James (52%) | Santos (65%), Caicedo (95%) | Enzo (74%), Palmer (71%), Estêvão (71%) | João Pedro (66%)
Others coming close to starting include Malo Gusto (45%), Wesley Fofana (41%), Pedro Neto (38%), Liam Delap (37%). Jorrel Hato (33%), Benoît Badiashile (26%), and Jamie Gittens (23%) bring up the rear, with Tyrique George (2%) and Marc Guiu (1%) both just an afterthought.
