Chelsea’s final chance to salvage something shiny from this season is the FA Cup, in part thanks to some rather favorable draws at every stage so far. We’ve yet to face Premier League opposition: three Championship teams and the worst side in League One quite easily dispatched (though we needed extra time against Wrexham) in the previous rounds. And even now, in the semifinals, we aren’t exactly facing a top level outfit, with Leeds United only recently securing a second season in the top flight.
Of course, given our current form, that still feels like a daunting prospect, to say the least. Leeds are unbeaten in seven in all competitions, and they haven’t lost a game in nearly two months. Conversely, Chelsea have lost seven of eight in all competitions, and the one exception was against the aforementioned third division strugglers, Port Vale. Other than that game, we’ve not scored a goal since Enzo Fernández’s equalizer in Paris some 45 days and 400 minutes of football ago.
Unsurprisingly, head coach Liam Rosenior was dismissed after Tuesday’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton. Whether that makes any tangible difference to our results remains to be seen, but it had to happen regardless. Calum McFarlane is back in interim charge; he led the team to one of our more credible results earlier this season, the 1-1 draw at Manchester City. He’ll have to try to get the players to check back in, after Rosenior accused them, and rightly so, of not being fit to wear the Blue shirt.
Date / Time: Sunday, April 26, 2026, 15.00 BST: 10am EDT; 7:30pm IST
Venue: Wembley Stadium, London
Referee: Jarred Gillett (on pitch); Paul Howard (VAR)
Forecast: Fairly warm and partly sunny, unlike our prospects
On TV: TNT Sports 1 (UK); ESPN2 (USA); Sony TEN 2 (India); SuperSport Premier League (NGA); elsewhere
Streaming: discovery+ (UK); ESPN Select (USA); Sony LIV (India); DStv Now (NGA)
Chelsea team news: Minor injuries kept Cole Palmer and João Pedro out of Rosenior’s Waterloo at Brighton, and they remain questionable to return for this game. We are certainly a better team with those two in (especially in JP’s case since the only replacement used has been Liam Delap), so hopefully they can take part. No such luck for Estêvão however; he’s been ruled out for the rest of the season, and probably well beyond with a major hamstring problem.
Much has been written about Rosenior’s departure, but internally, it’s been largely to the sound of crickets. No player has posted on social media about it, and apparently it’s not been talked about either. Let us never talk about him again, I guess, per official policy.
“We haven’t had a clear-the-air meeting. We are getting the group focused for Sunday, spoken about the game plan and how we’re going to approach the game both in and out of possession. It’s really important that we have a real focus for the game on Sunday. You can’t be thinking about anything else. What’s gone on in the past doesn’t need to be spoken about. It’s just everything geared towards Sunday.”
Either way, the performance levels certainly need to improve and improve dramatically from what we’ve seen in the past many weeks. Rosenior put a positive spin on things for a while, but even he couldn’t do it by the end. It’s been bad for a long time now. Can McFarlane inspire a response?
“There’s still a lot of belief in this group. I know it’s been tough recently, but we’ve had some good games this year, good performances against top sides in recent history. There’s a lot of talent. Some of those players in there are some of the best players in the world for their position. There’s still a belief within us. We can turn this around and get our season back on track.”
-Calum McFarlane; source: Football.London
Manchester City, after coming from behind against Southampton, would await in the final. But first we have to get there.
Leeds United team news: The Whites have not spent much time in the relegation zone this season, but until recently, they were only slightly hovering above it. Their current good run has taken them well clear and made them safe, and they could yet make it a very good season depending on how their FA Cup campaign ends. They have won the cup just once in their history, in 1972, a couple years after the famous 1970 final against Chelsea — the “most brutal” game in the history of English football, as the legend goes. A recent re-refereeing of the game resulted in ten (10!) red cards and 25 yellows.
Head coach Daniel Farke doesn’t have too many injuries to deal with, though he did lose key midfielder Ilia Gruev to a torn meniscus this week. Anton Stach, Jayden Bogle, and Sebastiaan Bornauw are facing late fitness tests. Farke’s biggest decision might be who to start in goal, with usual cup goalkeeper Lucas Perri apparently in line to keep his place over Karl Darlow.
“When some top-class players are showing the basics and have no excuses, then it can be a really, really dangerous side. For that, I expect a Chelsea side who will be back to their best. I expect a side who will try to prove that it’s a fresh start, and right now the burden has been lifted and they want to show what they’re capable of.”
-Daniel Farke; source: ESPN
Daniel Farke might be the most confident Chelsea fan on the planet, and he may not even be a fan (he probably isn’t).
Previously: Our recent record against Leeds is quite bad, with only one win in five, including just one point earned this season from our two games. But that one win came in the FA Cup a couple years ago, 3-2 (under Mauricio Pochettino), so maybe we can take some glimmer of hope from that. Conor Gallagher scored the last-minute winner, with Nico Jackson and Misha Mudryk(!) on the scoresheet, too.
