Chelsea travel to Azerbaijan, where they will face Qarabag FK tomorrow night needing a victory to get them through to the UEFA Champions League knockout stage. Antonio Conte’s side are heavily favored to win the game, but a draw or a defeat would set up a very tense final group stage game against Atletico Madrid.
If Atletico draws or loses their contest against AS Roma, then the Blues are in to the final 16 with just a draw against Qarabag Wednesday night. As of now, the Spanish side are four points behind Chelsea, as Diego Simeone’s side have drawn three and lost one of their four group games, but are also heavily favored to see off the Italian side.
Antonio Conte, along with Blues keeper Thibaut Courtois, met the media to preview the Wednesday night clash. Conte listed out his fitness and injury concerns, and we factored this in to our Chelsea starting XI prediction, which you can read over at this link.
“Hazard is fit and no new injuries. Batshuayi and Moses are not available for tomorrow’s game, also Musonda and Kenedy,” Conte said.
“Kenedy had a little muscular problem, but I think he is very close to be back with us.”
This was of course the main takeaway from this session, but another highlight was when Conte hit out at the fixture congestion going on in the schedule.
“Would like to underline that I am talking about all teams that is playing in Champions League, not only Chelsea,” he said.
“England needs to try to understand this and try to change something. A lot of time there isn’t an English team to win the CL, every team has the possibility to go through. Who prepare this fixtures must pay great attention.”
“We are doing our job and it’s important to do it in the best way. We want also a bit of respect for our job.”
Champions League odds: Chelsea 10/29, draw 19/4, Qarabag FK 11/1
As always, feel free to post your own Chelsea FC starting XI and match score predictions in the comments section.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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