Brentford vs Chelsea – Team News: Maresca surprises everyone with major changes | OneFootball

Chelsea face Brentford at the G Tech Stadium in just over an hour, and the teams are in!

Coming soon after a Thursday night game we expected at least a couple of changes from Enzo Maresca and he has done just that – in fact he’s changed things up far more than we expected.

We expected Noni Madueke to come into the team and he has. We expected Reece James to come into the team and he has.

We were unsure whether Nicolas Jackson would be risked, and Maresca has benched the striker. Christopher Nkunku starts against a big, physical Brentford back line. We’re not sure that will work out well.

After that it gets even wilder. Cole Palmer is out of the team despite having had a nice long break to recover from his minor issue.

In the back line, we had been praying that we would finally see a settled Levi Colwill – Trevoh Chalobah partnership after they kept a clean sheet against Tottenham, and with Wesley Fofana out until the end of the season. But instead Tosin Adarabioyo comes in for Colwill.

Perhaps it’s just a minor injury, but given Colwill is on the bench that seems unlikely. Rotating in those positions feels so unnecessary and risky – Colwill didn’t play a minute for England in the international break.

That’s not the only change in the back line – Malo Gusto has switched to left back, with Marc Cucurella rested.

Jadon Sancho plays in the attacking 3 in place of Pedro Neto.

Here are the full team line-ups for Brentford vs Chelsea (kick off at 14:00 GMT)

CHELSEA:

Chelsea’s team to face Brentford.

All in all this feels like a huge gamble from Maresca. We respect his desire to keep his favourite first team players fresh, but this is going to be a tough game and that team just doesn’t look up to it.