Crystal Palace vs Chelsea – Team News: Maresca hands surprise start to brilliant young talent | OneFootball

Chelsea face Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in just under an hour, and the teams are in!

It’s a rare 3pm Saturday kick off for Chelsea this afternoon, and there are plenty of question marks for Enzo Maresca after a draw and two defeats against bottom half teams in the last 3 games.

Palace are a rising force at the moment, and they got a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge earlier this season. At Selhurst Park this is going to be a tricky game, and Maresca needs his team to play far better than they have done in recent games.

With multiple defenders out of action and a disappointing showing from Axel Disasi on Monday night fresh in the mind, Maresca makes one really notable change. Josh Acheampong starts at centre back for the first time for Chelsea, playing alongside Levi Colwill. Tosin has dropped to the bench after some shaky moments in our last 3 games.

This is a huge moment for young Josh. Impress here and he can become number one option to partner Colwill for the forseeable future. Benoit Badiashile will be out until February at least, and Wesley Fofana is going to miss the rest of the season.

The rest of the team is the standard first XI we’ve come to expect in the last month or so: Robert Sanchez in goal, Malo Gusto and Marc Cucurella at full back, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo in central midfield with Cole Palmer ahead of them, Nicolas Jackson up top flanked by Jadon Sancho and Pedro Neto.

A lot of those attackers were rested on Monday and we lost. Let’s hope we at least get a really energetic showing from them this afternoon to make up for it.

Here are the full team line-ups for Crystal Palace vs Chelsea (kick off at 15:00 GMT)

CHELSEA:

Chelsea team sheet against Crystal Palace.