Having narrowly lost their opening Group H clash with Valencia two weeks ago, Chelsea head to the Stade Pierre Mauroy to take on Lille OSC in the Champions League.
Both teams are currently without a win so victory here could send the winners up into the top two, whilst a Lille win would drop Chelsea to the bottom of the group.
Team news
Embed from Getty ImagesLille have a full squad available for selection apart from Timothy Weah, who remains out with a hamstring tear.
Oliver Giroud could be available for Chelsea after illness kept him out of their last three matches.
Kurt Zouma is also set to be available after missing Saturday’s win over Brighton with illness, whilst N’Golo Kante could feature after being rested last time out as he slowly returns from a thigh injury.
Emerson (thigh), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Achilles), Marco van Ginkel (knee) and Antonio Rudiger (groin) all remain sidelined.
Stat Attack
- This is Chelsea’s first meeting with LOSC Lille in all competitions.
- Chelsea are winless in their last three trips to France (D1, L2), although those meetings all came against PSG.
- Lille have failed to win their last eight European home matches since beating AEK Athens in October 2006 in this competition (D3, L5).
Prediction
Lille need to step up their defending because I can see Chelsea looking to repeat what Ajax did a fortnight ago, in exposing their defensive defiencies particularly when it comes to marking.
If the Londoners can do that and continue to improve their consistency over an entire match, they should get a comfortable win here despite their recent record in France but the key will be to not think of Lille as PSG physiologically.
Prediction: Lille OSC 0-2 Chelsea
Result: Lille OSC 1-2 Chelsea
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