Chelsea: Three key clashes to look for as Blues seek a miracle

2. The match will turn on the performances of the wide players

Bayern Munich love to attack with width through their full backs and wingers. It is completely understandable as to why. With players like Alphonso Davies, Serge Gnabry, Kingsley Coman, and numerous others, any team would attack down the flanks.

Chelsea also likes to build in wide areas, primarily through the full backs. The wingers generally tuck in to give the full backs space to cross, but they are not opposed to staying out wide themselves.

Overall, this will be a battle of full backs and wingers and the players that support them. Both teams will want to push down the sides of the field before coming back in. Both teams will want to press the opposition and stop them from doing so. And both teams may readjust at any moment to play direct to their strikers who can feed the wide men back in.

The game will turn on the wide players. Reece James, Emerson, Mason Mount, and Callum Hudson-Odoi are all but guaranteed to start for the Blues. Bayern, despite their three away goal lead, has not given the impression that they will rotate and take things easy. The three young players, plus the outcast Emerson, will have their work cut out for them.

All four, regardless of formation, will need to be at their very best. James and Mount have already broken into the first team as starters, but they need to show they can be generational, even if only for a night. Hudson-Odoi needs to show Bayern exactly what they are missing. And Emerson has to give Frank Lampard and the club serious second thoughts about letting him go.

Anything short of an amazing performance from any of these four and Bayern’s wide players will eat them alive. It is imperative that they turn up in Germany as if their careers depended on it.