Chelsea travel to Anfield short-handed after a run of injuries and doubts that have depleted the squad ahead of a busy week. Interim manager Calum McFarlane has extracted an improved performance since taking charge, guiding the side past Leeds United to reach the 2026 FA Cup final. Still, BlueCo’s project sits at a crossroads regardless of next week\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n
McFarlane will have one eye on the domestic cup final as his team head to Merseyside. The fixture is not treated as an intimidating trip in isolation, but the current group are primarily focused on restoring pride rather than mounting a title challenge.<\/p>\n
Robert S\u00e1nchez will miss Saturday\u2019s trip after coming off following a nasty head clash with Morgan Gibbs-White. S\u00e1nchez was unable to prevent Chelsea falling 3\u20130 behind to Nottingham Forest on Monday and was replaced for the final portion of the contest after the incident with the away side\u2019s talismanic playmaker, who now dons a Harry Potter-like scar. Filip J\u00f6rgensen, who has recently recovered from an injury setback, will be available to start between the posts. McFarlane will hope to have S\u00e1nchez back for the Cup final.<\/p>\n
There is a long-term concern for Est\u00eav\u00e3o after he suffered a grade four hamstring tear in last month\u2019s defeat to Manchester United. The Brazilian starlet will not play for Chelsea again until preseason at the earliest. He has opted against surgery and will undergo rehabilitation in Brazil to keep his fading chances of making Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s squad alive, though the odds are against him and he may have to wait until 2030 to make his World Cup bow.<\/p>\n
Jamie Gittens, who suffered a hamstring tear during January\u2019s 3\u20132 win over West Ham United, looked set for a quicker recovery but suffered a setback while preparing for the FA Cup tie against Port Vale. He now appears likely to be out for the remainder of the season. Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho both missed Monday\u2019s defeat and are doubts for the upcoming game.<\/p>\n
There was a further worrying episode on the stroke of half-time in the Forest game when teenager Jesse Derry, making his first Premier League start, won Chelsea a penalty after he was clattered into by Zach Abbott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea head into their trip to Anfield with a lengthy injury list and doubts over key young talents<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1446,227,1558],"class_list":["post-13698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-academy","tag-alejandro-garnacho","tag-brazil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698","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=13698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}