TACTICAL BRIEF

• As is the nature of football, these two teams may be sick of the sight of each other by the end of next weekend’s FA Cup semi-final.



• Antonio Conte will hope to arrest his team’s disappointing form – the champions would be 14th on a league table of form over the past 10 matches (Southampton 16th), and have not managed a clean sheet in five Premier League outings.

• If changes are to be made, the likes of Andreas Christensen, Pedro, Olivier Giroud, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Davide Zappacosta and Ross Barkley will be pushing for involvement with a place at Wembley in the offing. However, Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata linked well against West Ham and for the second week running, a Victor Moses cross was crucial to the Blues opening the scoring.

• This season’s statistics indicate the hosts are not strong in the air, whereas Chelsea have scored the most headers in the top flight this season.