Chelsea vs Sunderland – Team News: Striker makes first league start in Maresca shake-up | OneFootball

Chelsea face Sunderland at Stamford Bridge in just over an hour, and the teams are in!

As always with a squad full of talent but without a truly settled side, it’s always fascinating to see who Enzo Maresca picks, and today he’s switched things up significantly.

Robert Sanchez is in goal following Filip Jorgensen’s midweek run out, and Reece James plays at right back after getting a rest on Wednesday night. It’s the same story at left back for Marc Cucurella. In our predicted XI, centre back was where it got interesting, and that’s proved to be the case here too.

It’s academy pair Josh Acheampong and Trevoh Chalobah who get the nod. In midfield, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo make their usual pair, but Joao Pedro has been switched to the usual Cole Palmer role ahead of them.

Alejandro Garnacho gets another chance to impress on the left wing, with Pedro Neto on the right.

Leading the line, we had an inkling Marc Guiu would start after he was taken off at half time in midweek, and indeed he does get his first Premier League start ever.

All in all, it’s a team most fans will be happy with. Put Liam Delap instead of Guiu and Palmer instead of Garnacho and you’d be pretty close to most fans’ ideal team.

Here are the full team line-ups for Chelsea vs Sunderland (kick off at 15:00 GMT)

CHELSEA:

Chelsea’s team to face Sunderland.

In other news….

We had a great chat with Sunderland site Roker Report on how today’s game could go, which you can read here. this team selection certainly changes our thoughts a little bit.

And former Chelsea man Marcel Desailly has said the Blues are a player short of having the firepower to win the league. Let’s hope we can prove him wrong by banging in a few today.