Chelsea have suffered plenty of defeats in recent seasons, many of them quite frustrating, painful, infuriating. But it’s hard to remember another like Wednesday night’s debacle in Paris, where a decent, possibly even good effort through 75 minutes was so spectacularly scuppered thanks to our own mistakes. We didn’t just lose, we collapsed in every sense of that word.
It was a season-defining defeat, and an inflection point that, depending on how we respond to it, could have long-lasting repercussions
for this team. Will the rest of the season follow in step? Will we muddle along and wallow in mediocrity? Or will we regroup, double down, and go again … and use it to grow from and get better? The Champions League may be done, barring a miracle of all miracles, but we have plenty left to fight for domestically.
We come into the weekend hanging on to fifth in the league, ahead of Liverpool only on goal difference. Out-of-form Aston Villa and in-form Manchester United are three points ahead. At least one of these four will not get to play Champions League next season. These three points on offer this weekend are absolutely essential in making sure we’re not that one.
Date / Time: Saturday, March 14, 2026, 17.30 GMT; 1:30pm EDT; 11pm IST
Venue: Stamford Bridge, SW6
Forecast: spring has sprung
Referee: Paul Tierney (on pitch); Micheal Salisbury (VAR)
On TV: Sky Sports Premier League (UK); none (USA); Star Sports Select HD2 (India); SuperSport MaXimo 1, Canal+ Sport 3 (NGA); elsewhere
Streaming: Sky Go (UK); Peacock (USA); JioHotstar (India); DStv Now (NGA)
Newcastle United team news: It’s been a disappointing season for the Magpies in the league, unable to build on their fifth-place last season, though they are in a better situation in the Champions League than Chelsea after almost beating Barcelona midweek at St James’ Park (Barca equalized at the death to take 1-1 into next week’s second leg).
Having lost five of their last seven in the Premier League — a stretch of fixtures similar in terms of difficulty as to what we’re going through at the moment — they are effectively out of the top-five race, and since they’re out of the FA Cup as well, hopefully they are purely focused on their European adventures at the moment. Manager Eddie Howe has a job on his hand to find a way to get them to pay attention this weekend as well.
“There’s mental challenges for this game. A lot of the focus will be on the Barcelona game, rightly so, but this game is a very tough one. They’re a dangerous team, one of the toughest away games we’ll have. Big job to get the players ready.”
-Eddie Howe; source: BBC
Newcastle are dealing with a couple big long-term injuries, with Bruno Guimarães, Fabian Schär, and Emil Krafth all ruled out for at least the next month still and young Lewis Miley, who seems to always play well against us, ruled out for a couple more weeks.
Anthony Gordon, their leading scorer in all competitions, didn’t start against Barcelona on account of illness; but he should be fully fit now. Nick Woltemade hasn’t scored in the league since is brace against us in December, but we’ve got to watch out for him as well. And there’s also Harvey Barnes, who’s having a career year. So plenty of danger still.
View from the enemy: Coming Home Newcastle
Chelsea team news: Jamie Gittens has been passed fit, which is good news considering that Estêvão remains out with his “minor” hamstring injury and Pedro Neto has been suspended anew, copping an additional one-match suspension for his red card (and behavior) against Arsenal. Gittens has not done much this season following his big-money move from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, but hopefully he can finish the season stronger. Alejandro Garnacho is stuck in a similar narrative, having made most of his impact in domestic cups. This would be a great time for either to step up.
The big(gest) talking point after the PSG game was of course Liam Rosenior’s decision to switch goalkeepers, going with Filip Jörgensen instead of Robert Sánchez, supposedly due to the former’s better ability on the ball. So it was tragically ironic that it was a poor pass from Jörgensen that torpedoed the game for us. Combined with his below-par shot-stopping, and of course our below-par defending, PSG would end up scoring five times from an xG of barely one.
Rosenior has put on a brave face when talking about this maddening situation, but surely Sánchez will be restored.
“I made a decision to play Filip against Aston Villa and his performance was outstanding and contributed to a very good win against a very good team. I think his performance [against PSG] for 75 minutes was magnificent. He makes a mistake and we get punished and we go on to lose a game in a manner that we definitely shouldn’t have lost. Rob Sánchez is one of the best goalkeepers in the league. There’s no question about those two players’ quality at this level. It’s more about my decision for each game and in which way I go in that position.
“Everybody makes mistakes in life, in football. It’s how you recover, it’s how you respond to a setback. I’ve got no issues, no lack of trust with the two goalkeepers I have. I’m really, really looking forward to getting back on the pitch with what happened in the last 15 minutes on Wednesday.”
Rosenior may say he still believes in Jörgensen, but that opinion doesn’t seem to be shared by most others, including perhaps some of those actually on the team. Enzo Fernández certainly showed some frustrations with the goalkeeper towards the end of Wednesday’s game, and at the very least, that doesn’t make for very good optics. The head coach isn’t worried about that scene, and thinks we can channel it into something good. Let’s hope so!
“I want a team with a culture of accountability where we can demand from each other in the moment. Enzo loves Filip, Enzo wants the best for him, Enzo believes in him. In that moment he was frustrated with something that happened and that’s normal, isn’t it?
“[…] I want players to demand from each other, always with respect, but we sit down and we talk about it and we work things through together in the dressing room. In this social media climate now, any small thing can turn into the biggest thing, based on the amount of clicks that it gets. The reality is somewhere nowhere near as big as what it’s made out to be.”
-Liam Rosenior; source: Football.London
Previously: We managed to take a relatively rare point from St James’ Park in December. At home, we’ve lost just one of the last 30 played against Newcastle (22 wins), since the Papiss Cissé game in 2012.
