Chelsea face their third acronym of the Europa League group stage, as BATE Borisov ride their tractors to Stamford Bridge. Here are our predictions for this first-ever meeting.
Chelsea only scored one goal in each of their first two Europa League games despite playing very strong lineups against their little-known opponents. If Maurizio Sarri does the right thing and plays the youth, and they light up the Stamford Bridge scoreboard, then what will happen?
Barrett Rouen: Chelsea 3 – 0 BATE Borisov. Chelsea play well in this game. Ruben Loftus-Cheek continues to show he is the English coming of Michael Ballack and should be playing more, but doesn’t. Callum Hudson-Odoi should play, but he won’t either. Chelsea will win, but it will be sad to watch a team that has the future Michael Ballack, Rio Ferdinand and Thierry Henry among their youth players decide it’s more useful to run out a bunch of bang average ceiling-hitters. Oh well, then. At least they’ll beat a small club in the near term and not spite our future or anything.
Kevin Peacock: 1-0, 1-0, 4-0. This is the time for Chelsea’s Europa League stars to shine. The second-stringers won’t go mad, but they will achieve Maurizio Sarri’s best margin of victory since arriving in London. With Tottenham (smiley face emoji) heading for the knock-out phase of the co mpetition, the Premier League benchwarmers team will want to stamp their authority on Group L once and for all. The win will come courtesy of goals from A-teamers Alvaro Morata, ‘Dave’ and Willian (2).
Hugo Amaya: 2 – 0. With some key players out to injury or just rest, Chelsea will have a new feel to their play. The defense will be completely solid having David Luiz on the bench. Alvaro Morata will start, but with the only purpose of being substituted at the 50′. The Blues will score two goals in the second half without much of a worry and get the three points. A much-needed win to take back to the Premier League.
Scott Brant: 2 – 0. With what I saw against MOL Vidi and PAOK, 2-0 seems like a fair result. In both matches I had hopes of seeing some youngsters play, but I’m not sure that will occur this match either. With no Hazard, I’m extremely hopeful Morata will get some confidence and net two. Someone besides the Belgian has to start scoring. The Blues have been entirely too reliant upon him, so much so Hazard’s back is hurting from carrying the team on it.
Gabe Henderson: 3 – 0. My head tells me Chelsea will struggle to score goals in Hazard’s absence and this will end in a two goal victory. However, my gut is saying Chelsea will wake up and begin to assert their dominance in the Europa League. After hard-fought 1-0 victories in the first two matches, the Blues’ second team runs away with this match and nets at least three. With BATE traditionally struggling to get results in big European away matches, this game will be no different.
Abhishek Pancholi: 4 – 0. Even without Hazard and Jorginho to smooth things up, Chelsea should have enough in the tank to master BATE without breaking a sweat. Sarri will likely put out a B-team with the likes of Morata, Pedro and Ruben Loftus-Cheek either starting or coming on as substitutes. Theoretically, this should be a cakewalk. Expect Morata to bag two goals and one of the defenders to get on the scoresheet.