Enzo Maresca already had this game in mind when he picked his starting lineup on Saturday, opting for a bit of rotation that unfortunately didn’t really pay off, with Chelsea managing just a draw against Brentford.
But perhaps that will have been worth it if we could pull off a result in Munich on Wednesday night, in our first Champions League match in over two years. It’s the opening game of the eight-game “league phase” of this new format, and it is certainly among the toughest games that will await
us all season, in any competition.
Nicolas Jackson might take the narrative center stage, but our bigger concern might be the status of João Pedro, who already wasn’t fully fit this weekend before being forced into action. The return of Estêvão from illness, and Cole Palmer finding his scoring touch again should be helpful to our attack, but we have to be careful of overloading JP.
By the way, UEFA’s website now lists Facundo Buonanotte as part of the Chelsea squad, so it looks like he was registered after all.
