Basel vs Chelsea
St. Jakob-Park (Basel)
26th November, 2013
19:45 GMT
Chelsea have taken the same number of points from the opening 12 matches of this season as they had last season under Roberto di Matteo. The only difference comes in the Champions League campaign. Just a few months after winning the trophy, di Matteo was unable to get the team into the knockout stages. Jose Mourinho is very close to taking Chelsea into the last 16 stage as the group winners, which has significance.
Chelsea have not done well away from home in European competitions, but our 4-0 win against Steaua Bucharest should give us confidence. The team has done extremely well to stage a remarkable comeback after suffering a defeat in the match against Basel. The work will be completed with a win, which should be enough to top the group.
Mourinho used the tried and trusted 4-3-3 formation against West Ham, but he is likely to revert to the 4-2-3-1 that has been the norm this season.
Team news:
David Luiz, who missed the weekend’s match against West Ham, has been ruled out of the match due to a knee injury. Fernando Torres has been included in the squad, but he is most likely to start from the bench. Even though Ashley Cole out of the squad, he is not 100% fit and may remain on the bench once again.
Mata did not play at the weekend and he may start this match due to his freshness.
Basel’s major injury concerns are Marcelo Diaz and Behrang Safari.
Predicted line-ups:
Basel (4-2-3-1): Sommer, Xhaka, Schär, Ivanov, Voser, Die, Frei, Stocker, Delgado, Salah, Streller
Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Cech, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Lampard, Ramires, Willian, Mata, Hazard, Eto’o
Manager’s view:
Jose , use Mata stop been wicked on that innocent guy
Jose, Mata deserve to be playing regular football at chelsea please Jose save thise lad football career.
the day jose started ruling out our
Golden Boy MATA,thats when i starting hating Jose.
JOSE wen will ever stop breaking fans hearts in each club u go to.pliz bring back MATA we miss his passes n z better then all our current midfielder wen it comes to creating chances for goals
Dn’t lyk what jose is doin to juan
pls jose be stating mata
Lolz José start!!!!!!mata and drop WHO???? mata is not in form