After last Sunday\u2019s excellent win at Everton gave us a glimmer of European hope, we head into the season\u2019s final fixture with the possibility of claiming a place in one of the European comps next season. Of course, it\u2019s not in our hands completely, we just need to do our bit \u2013 which is win against a Chelsea team who stumbled over the line against Spurs in midweek, following defeat in the FA Cup final last weekend. Team wise, we know Omar Alderete is struggling and Chemsdine Talbi is out \u2013 so is this the side Le Bris will name this afternoon?<\/p>\n
Easy one to begin with. It was interesting to hear Le Bris talk about Roefs this week \u2013 he confirmed what we\u2019d all seen, in that he\u2019d been a little hesitant upon returning from injury, but is back in his best form now \u2013 something he showed with a game-changing save at 2-1 at Everton. What a signing he\u2019s been.<\/p>\n
Defence: Lutsharel Geertruida, Nordi Mukiele, Omar Alderete, Reinildo<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t imagine Omar Alderete will miss out unless he\u2019s desperately hurt, so I\u2019m predicting he\u2019ll be in the starting line up, although Luke O\u2019Nien\u2019s brilliant showing last week demonstrated we\u2019ve no reason to be concerned should the Paraguayan miss out. Whichever of the two of them plays will surely be alongside an unchanged defence, with Geertruida making a big play for a permanent deal.<\/p>\n
Midfield: Trai Hume, Granit Xhaka, Enzo Le Fee, Noah Sadiki, Nilson Angulo<\/p>\n
I reckon it\u2019ll be same again in midfield today, especially with Talbi out. Xhaka, Le Fee and Sadiki will form the three once more, while Trai Hume will once again be asked to do the centre back\/right back\/right mid\/centre mid role. For anyone struggling to see the \u2018why\u2019 in Hume\u2019s selection there, just watch him when Chelsea have possession \u2013 he\u2019s integral to the defensive set up. Yes, he doesn\u2019t offer as much as some other options would going forward, but he helps us stay in games and build a platform for those more attacking players to come on against tired legs, as Rigg, Isidor and Diarra did to good effect last week.<\/p>\n
Le Bris called Brobbey his first choice striker in midweek, and that\u2019s unsurprising \u2013 the Dutch international\u2019s got better and better as the season\u2019s progressed, and showed a different side to his game with his run and goal on Sunday. While his season total of seven so far may not seem brilliant, he\u2019s started just 21 games, playing the full 90 on just 5 occasions, so he\u2019s scoring more than one in three, which isn\u2019t at all bad, considering we aren\u2019t the most attacking team around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After last Sunday\u2019s excellent win at Everton gave us a glimmer of European hope, we head into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":981235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,9991,391],"class_list":["post-981234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-match-previews","tag-opinion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116627810972897652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/981235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}