Can Chelsea BREAK The Record? | Chelsea Vs Crystal Palace

Setting The Scene Coming off of the back of a triumphant FA Cup tie against Aston Villa, we switch our attention back to the Premier League as Chelsea take on South London neighbours Crystal Palace away at Selhurst Park. Lads, Lasses and the rest of the Masses, Welcome to the #Leadin. Let’s set the scene here. It’s Palace vs Chelsea once again, 15th place vs 11th place. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a particularly big game - A palace win would only put them up to 13th, and a Chelsea win just reverses the damage we suffered last time out against Wolves, leapfrogging them back into 10th. In the reverse fixture at Stamford Bridge, this was one of the only games this season where we actually looked pretty decent, our finishing let us down but we were creating a lot of clear-cut chances, and despite leaving it late with a Noni Madueke penalty - arguably deserved to win this game throughout. That game felt special because we saw returns for Nkunku and Lavia, Mudryk and Madueke were playing well, and besides one major lapse of concentration from Levi Colwill letting Palace back into the game, we felt like much the better side. Palace Palace’s form is patchy to say the least at the moment - they’ve won 2 and lost 3 of their last five matches in the league - shipping a gigantic 14 goals in the process, and only scoring 8. Those 2 wins came against Sheffield United and Brentford, so not the strongest of teams - but their losses came against some better teams too with us, Arsenal and Brighton dispatching the red and blue outfit recently. In between those games they also were dumped out of the FA Cup by Sean Dyche’s Everton side, being unable to beat them in the first game despite the toffees only having 10 men late on, and then losing in the replay. They are going to have to improve massively from that recent thrashing at the hands of Brighton, so let’s take a brief look at how their team could line-up for this one! Firstly let’s talk absentees - Palace have quite a few players out injured, the most intriguing of which is Michael Olise - who was bizarrely put on the pitch despite clearly not being fit enough to play, and getting re-injured against Brighton. Another star man in Eberechi Eze is out too, with Cheick Doucoure, Rob Holding, Jesurun Rak-Sakyi and ex-Blues defender Marc Guehi joining him on the treatment table. Joel Ward is also a doubt, but could be used if 100% needed. I'll be putting Roy Hodgson’s side into a standard 4-3-3 formation, but due to the multitude of absentees there will be some changes to the starting 11 that faced the Seagulls. First up in goal though is the ever reliable ex-Manchester United goalkeeper, Dean Henderson. The defence is going to be one of the places that sees change, but the RB is not one of those - I fully expect new signing Daniel Munoz to continue in this position. The CB partnership will be swapped around a little, I believe that Chris Richards will drop from the midfield back into the RCB spot, and next to him will of course be the ever-impressive Dane Joachim Andersen. Over on the left to finish the defence off will once again be Tyrick Mitchell. Moving into the midfield there’ll be change here too - starting with the deeper midfielder of the three - as Richards has dropped back it seems the obvious replacement will be to put in Adam Wharton for his full debut. The two more advanced CMs will come in the form of Jefferson Lerma on the right, and ex-Watford man Will Hughes on the left. For the three up top, I don’t think this will change from the Brighton game, so on the right side, I expect Jordan Ayew to play. Opposite him on the left will remain Jeffrey Schlupp, and finally down the centre will be Jean-Philippe Mateta to lead the line. There is a chance that Franca could rotate into one of the winger roles here, but I don’t expect that in truth. As I said, just a brief overview of what I expect their team to look like, I'm not going to go into much more detail as we've played them just over a month ago but I’ll touch on a few things a little bit later so stick around! Instead, let’s quickly take a look at how Chelsea could line up! Chelsea We have so many options at our disposal now in attack that I could see multiple sets of personnel here, but I’ll be predicting what I expect to see from Pochettino as always, and then give my personal lineup afterwards like I often do. So hopefully we'll be lining up in a similar way to how we did against Aston Villa in the cup, in this hybrid 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2. Starting with the goalkeeper it’s of course going to be Djorde Petrovic, who’ll be hoping this time he doesn’t get robbed of his clean sheet by the defenders in front of him. The back four is going to be similar to the 4 that started against Villa, starting on the right will once again be Malo Gusto who was excellent in midweek. The CB partnership will change due to injury, with Axel Disasi retaining his place alongside the incoming Thiago Silva, who replaces the injured Benoit Badiashile. Finally, over on the left I’ll be putting in Ben Chilwell once again, who was much improved against Villa. Moving into the midfield, we’ll start with the RM, and I would expect Noni Madueke to retain his place because he was absolutely on fire last time out. The two central midfielders won’t change, as always we will see that wonderful combination of Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, who were absolutely dominant in that Villa game. Finally, on the left hand side - I’m going to be putting in Nico Jackson once again. Pochettino has said that he believes Jackson plays better without his back to goal, so I reckon he’ll do this shift once again. The two up top will change in my opinion, this might sound blasphemous, but I expect Cole Palmer to drop out of the team, in favour of Christopher Nkunku. This is because the player next to him, Conor Gallagher is so vital (in Pochettino’s eyes anyway) to this 4-4-2 system defensively, and as Nkunku isn’t as willing to press as Conor and will obviously be coming back into the side, I think Cole is the more like-for-like change here. This is what I am expecting, but what would I personally change? Well, there’s a couple of things I could see changing - Firstly, if he’s deemed fit enough to play, Levi Colwill has to start over Thiago Silva in that LCB spot. Our defence looked so well balanced without Thiago in the side, and Levi has been great anytime he’s played in his favoured position this season. Cole Palmer could retain his place over on the right in favour of Noni Madueke in truth, but I’m trusting Pochettino’s “I play players on merit” viewpoint and sticking with the former PSV man because of that. The only other change I’d like to see is Mhykailo Mudryk playing on the left, with Jackson going back up top - last time out against Palace, Mudryk looked absolutely class and was combining beautifully with Nkunku and Jackson - I’d love to see all three start, but I just don’t expect it to happen with Conor being in the line-up. I’d also love for Carney Chukwuemeka to play but in this 4-4-2 he just doesn’t neatly fit into any of the positions, if we played a different system I’d like to see him play. So those are my lineups, and I’d like to hear from you guys too, so for today’s QOTD, answer me this: When everyone is fit, what do YOU think is our best lineup in this 4-4-2 system, and why? Let me know in the comments below with QOTD at the start as always. Now let’s talk about the game plan. What should we be aiming to achieve in this game? Well, I’m going to basically review what we did well/poorly vs Palace last time out, and suggest what we can do in this game to try and get another result. The main thing we did well against Palace last time was to navigate the high press that they put us under from the beginning of the game, withstand that early pressure and settle into the game, scoring early. We didn’t have Enzo in the side that day, but Caicedo and Gallagher did ever so well in the middle to play through the Crystal Palace press, but more importantly, if they weren’t able to, draw fouls instead. Palace set up very offensive against us last time, but with the changes to the side I could foresee them being a little more pragmatic, and utilising long passes up to Mateta, who was a REALLY big nuisance the last time these two sides faced off. That day we had Disasi and Badiashile as our CBs and they were able to just about deal with the Frenchman who is a really decent target man. This time out I believe we’ll be playing Thiago Silva, and I do worry that he might struggle against the height, strength, and surprising pace of Mateta. So we’ll have to try and cut these passes out at the source, or put Palace under immense pressure so these passes go wayward. Palace also like to utilise the wide areas usually, but with Olise not in the side and us set up in this 4-4-2 with cover out on those wings for our fullbacks, I don’t think they’ll be as effective in that regard. When we are on the ball I’d love to see us utilise the same style of passing that we saw in the reverse fixture, with Chelsea playing some really neat, snappy, one-touch passing in and around the area. I think this will be easier to do with Enzo now in the side, and if we opt to drop Caicedo into that CB area like I discussed in my previous video, I could foresee Palace falling into the same traps that Villa did if they try to press us like they did last time out. We’ll need to be far more clinical than we were in that game, we had so many good chances and only took one of them, Mhykailo Mudryk’s goal in the first half. After the ruthless performance we just put in against Villa, I expect us to be equally as dominant here, and put the game beyond Palace as we so often have. A win here would set a record for Chelsea Football Club, with Palace becoming the opponents that we have beaten the most times in a row in our entire league history, with 13 wins on the spin. Score Prediction For a score prediction, despite my jinx working last time out, I’m not going to be predicting a Chelsea loss this time. I think we’ll win this game quite comfortably, and I’m going to say Chelsea will beat Palace 3-0. Our goals will come from Jackson, Nkunku and I reckon Gallagher will get on the scoresheet once more, like a London Bus. Another random prediction, I reckon Malo Gusto gets POTM in this game. I think this will be a good game, but might be frustrating at the start. Palace might look to absorb pressure, but once we finally break through I think the floodgates will open, as they open up trying to get back into the game. We’ll have to wait until the game to see if any of my predictions are correct, and as always I’ll be livestreaming after the game to give my first reactions! But, if you can’t wait until then, maybe watch one of THESE two videos on screen in the meantime! Thank you guys so much for watching, and remember: in the rain, or in the dry: #KTBFFH COYB!