The State of Play
Mauricio Pochettino and Chelsea have significantly underperformed this season as the Blues look set for back-to-back bottom-half finishes, despite spending over £1 billion since the takeover of the club by an American consortium led by Todd Boehly. They have been entertaining to watch throughout the campaign, though, continuing that theme on Saturday with a 2-2 draw against Burnley at Stamford Bridge.
Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United have been and are just, quite simply, a bad team – and yet they remain firmly in the hunt for European qualification and not too far of finishing in the top five and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League. The Red Devils come into this one on the back of a 1-1 draw with Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium in a game in which they were dominated throughout.
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Team News
Chelsea have been dealing with a very long injury list throughout the campaign with the likes of Wesley Fofana and Reece James being long-term absentees. Robert Sanchez, Levi Colwill and Christopher Nkunku are all still unavailable.
Manchester United are missing several key men for this week as left-back pair Luke Shaw and Tyrell Malacia are both unavailable. Lisandro Martinez has also been ruled out once again alongside the likes of Victor Lindelof and Anthony Martial.
Expected Line-ups
Chelsea: Petrovic; Disasi, Silva, Badiashile, Cucurella; Fernandez, Caicedo; Palmer, Gallagher, Mudryk; Jackson
Manchester United: Onana; Dalot, Maguire, Kambwala, Wan-Bissaka; Casemiro, Mainoo; Garnacho, Fernandes, Rashford; Hojlund
What they Said
Mauricio Pochettino criticised his players for a lack of energy and simple running against Burnley and has insisted that they ‘need to compete’ ahead of the visit of Manchester United.
Erik ten Hag has once again said that his Manchester United side ‘can beat anyone’ but did admit that it has been a ‘difficult’ Premier League season.
When and How to Watch
This match will be played at Stamford Bridge at 20:15 on Thursday April 4th and will be televised live on TNT Sports in the UK. It will also be streamed live via the TNT Sports app.
Prediction
In 28 Premier League matches so far this season, Chelsea’s matches have consisted of 96 goals. Their last five matches across all competitions have alone produced 24 goals with both teams scoring at least two in all of those games. Unfortunately for the neutral, that is an unsustainable run of form that will surely come to an end and up against a reactive, dull United side whereby only five teams have scored fewer than them in the league this season would appear to be the natural end. Under 2.5 or under 3.5 goals seems like a good bet for that reason.
