Chelsea will face Manchester United without top scorer Jo\u00e3o Pedro after the club confirmed he has been ruled out with a thigh injury and is not fit even to occupy a place on the bench. Rosenior gave the update ahead of the game and has moved to adjust his selection accordingly.<\/p>\n
The result increases the pressure on Chelsea, who have slipped away from the top five over the last month while chasing qualification for next season’s Champions League. The Blues sat four points behind fifth-placed Liverpool prior to United\u2019s visit and Rosenior needs a positive result to close the gap and lift a squad that has lost five of its last six matches, including a 3\u20130 defeat to Manchester City last Sunday.<\/p>\n
Rosenior has named the following starting XI in a 4-2-3-1: Robert S\u00e1nchez; Malo Gusto, Wesley Fofana, Jorrel Hato, Marc Cucurella; Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez, Mois\u00e9s Caicedo; Est\u00eav\u00e3o, Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto; Liam Delap.<\/p>\n
The substitutes are Teddy Sharman-Lowe (GK), Josh Acheampong, Tosin Adarabioyo, Trevoh Chalobah, Andrey Santos, D\u00e1rio Essugo, Rom\u00e9o Lavia, Alejandro Garnacho, Marc Guiu.<\/p>\n
Liam Delap has been selected as Pedro\u2019s replacement in the No. 9 role. Delap arrives with a lengthy scoring drought; he has failed to score in any competition since a goal in defeat at Fulham in early January and has not yet found the net under his former Hull City mentor.<\/p>\n
Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez has been recalled to the starting lineup after an internal suspension that kept him out of the previous two matches following comments about transfer links with Real Madrid. He returns to the team but has not been handed the captain\u2019s armband in Reece James\u2019s absence. That responsibility remains with Mois\u00e9s Caicedo.<\/p>\n
Pedro\u2019s absence is a notable blow given the club\u2019s recent form, but Rosenior is hopeful of having him available for the upcoming Tuesday fixture with Brighton & Hove Albion, the club Pedro was signed from last summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jo\u00e3o Pedro ruled out with a thigh injury and not even fit for the bench against Man Utd. and Chelsea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1305,1304,1006],"class_list":["post-12224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching","tag-captaincy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}