As the only team with a perfect record through the first five rounds, Chelsea are already guaranteed to finish in the top-eight of the “league phase”, and thus qualify directly for the UEFA Conference League Round of 16, which will be played in March.
So Thursday’s final league phase match, at home against Shamrock Rovers, is a bit of a dead rubber: Shamrock themselves are guaranteed to advance to the knockout rounds as well, and could possibly still finish top-eight even if they lose this game.
Just like last week’s expedition to Kazakhstan, this is a welcome scenario for us, a low-pressure situation to rest, recover, and perhaps play a few more youngsters. Given our steadily growing injury list of late, not to mention the Mudryk situation and his provisional suspension, not having to worry too much about this midweek games is a blessing in disguise.
That said, we will still want to win of course and keep the winning streak going. As usual, Cole Palmer, Roméo Lavia, Wesley Fofana, and Ben Chilwell are ineligible as they were not registered for this phase. Fofana’s also injured, as are Reece James and Benoît Badiashile. João Félix is questionable at this stage, while Carney Chukwuemeka has been battling an illness since the Kazakhstan trip (and an actual illness, not a euphemism for a failed drugs test). In a situation similar to Pedro Neto’s last week, Marc Cucurella will be banned for the match coming up over the weekend.
[Choose wisely.](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejL8BRE7bKkgt44oV9HhnNNJPt4wweSv918odvaf9okxMR2w/viewform)
([Live results](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejL8BRE7bKkgt44oV9HhnNNJPt4wweSv918odvaf9okxMR2w/viewanalytics))