By Ian King
Recent form
Losing to Brighton in the FA Cup made the Europa Conference League Chelsea’s only hope of silverware this season, and they’re still the odds-on favourites to win this tournament overall. But recent form has been mixed, with West Ham, Wolves and Southampton (15th, 17th and 20th in the Premier League respectively) the only teams they’ve beaten in the League since before Christmas.
FC København are top of the Superliga by a point and haven’t lost domestically since the 14th September, though it should be added that the Danish season has a two and a half month winter break. They finished 18th in the Europa Conference League megagroup, winning 2, drawing 2 and losing 2.
European pedigree
These two have only met once in European competition before. In the 2010/11 Champions League Round of 16, they played a goalless draw at Stamford Bridge before Chelsea won the return match 2-0 in Copenhagen. FC København got through to the Round of 16 of the Champions League last season too, qualifying alongside Bayern Munchen while eliminating Galatasaray and Manchester United. They were beaten by Manchester City. Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021. How they got from this to being in this competition in the space of four years is a long and complicated story.
Key players
Cole Palmer has been the glue that has held this Chelsea team together this season. He’s their joint-highest scorer, but he was left out of their squad for the group stages. He’s back in now. Christopher Nkunku is the other joint-top scorer with Palmer because he’s scored seven in this very competition. He’s been coming in for a lot of criticism, perhaps a big performance in a higher profile European match might silence some of that.
FC København have an English connection in the form of goalkeeper Nathan Trott, who is on loan from West Ham. He played six games for England’s U20s, and also represented Bermuda at youth level.
Team News
Trevoh Chalobah, Wesley Fofana and Benoît Badiashile are all close to returning from injury, but may not quite be ready in time. Enzo Maresca may well err on the side of caution for a winnable-looking European match such as this. Their other injuries are longer term.
Andreas Cornelius, Lukas Lerager, Nicolai Boilsen and Roony Bardghji are all injury doubts for FC København, while Jordy ‘Son of Henrik’ Larsson missed their last match at Aalborg, and it’s not known whether he’ll be back for this one.
Prediction
Chelsea have been struggling in the Premier League since before Christmas, but the Europa Conference League has been their happy place. With six wins out of six in the megagroup, they’re clear favourites to win this tournament. FC København beat Manchester United 4-3 at home in last year’s Champions League, but the gulf is huge and the inclusion of Cole Palmer alone a potential game-changer. 2-0 Chelsea, and a reasonably uneventful evening.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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