Chelsea FC’s Predicted XI Against Everton
Thibaut Courtois Asmir Begovic, Cesar Azpilicueta and Branislav Ivanovic
Five games into the season and I’ve already given up on having a separate slide for the goalkeeper. It would be wasting both your time and mine trying to spew out nonsense about why Courtois will be given the nod ahead of Asmir Begovic, so I scrapped it.
Yeah, genius Aj. Just after I published this article this morning news broke that Courtois has been injured in training. Oh well, Asmir Begovic steps in due to injury.
At full-back, Jose Mourinho may well stick with the tried and tested formula of Dave and Ivanovic. The Serbian has been arguably Chelsea’s worst player so far this season and with the arrival of Abdul Baba Rahman, it was thought that Azpilicueta would move to his natural right-back position and the Ghanaian would slot in on the left.
However, the Blues boss has thus far refused to comply with such a plan and with Everton posing a big threat Mourinho will in all likelihood stick with Ivanovic.
Azpilicueta has been distinctly average in Chelsea’s first four league games but that’s better than most of the team. After holding off Filipe Luis’ challenge last season, he continues to be reliable (even though the definition of reliable has had to be toned down for this term) and will hopefully be able to return to proper form against Everton.
Chelsea really need to hit their straps at Goodison Park and having full-backs that perform in both defensive and attacking departments is key.
Next: Centre-Backs