Aston Villa vs Chelsea – Team News: Maresca makes surprise formation change | OneFootball

Chelsea face Aston Villa at Villa Park in just under an hour, and the teams are in!

There are some interesting tweaks from Enzo Maresca today, as he desperately looks to arrested the slide which has seen his team plunge from 2nd to 6th in the course of a couple of months.

Their defensive weakness has now been matched by a lack of goal in attack, and Maresca has broken the emergency glass here, introducing what looks like a formation change to try and compensate for a lack of proper strikers.

Filip Jorgensen plays in goal, with Trevoh Chalobah and Levi Colwill in the middle of defence. However that’s where it gets funky. Malo Gusto AND Reece James are in the team, with Marc Cucurella too.

We’d imagine this means James plays on the right of a back 3, with Cucurella and Gusto pushed forwards as wing backs. They should in term be able to support Pedro Neto and Cole Palmer who will play as the wide attackers, with Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo in the middle of the the pitch and Christopher Nkunku spearheading the attack.

Here are the full team line-ups for Aston Villa vs Chelsea (kick off at 17:15 GMT)

CHELSEA:

It’s a dramatic change, but one that was needed. Jadon Sancho’s poor form has seen him dropped at last, and we just hope that bringing James’ quality and physicality into the team changes something.

Of course adding a defender for an attacker makes this seem like a defensive change, but if it gets Cucurella and Gusto into more dangerous areas and helps get the best out of Palmer and Nkunku, it could prove the right decision.

Something had to change, and there aren’t many alternatives for Enzo Maresca at the moment. Attacking options on the bench are Sancho plus a host of talented Cobham products.