Chelsea vs Arsenal – Team News: Maresca’s huge Estevao call signals major change at Chelsea

Chelsea face Arsenal at Stamford Bridge in just over an hour, and the teams are in! Enzo Maresca has made a major call in his front line.

Estevao Willian started and scored in midweek, and it finally seems like his superb form has forced the manager’s hand. The Brazilian starts in a front 3 with Joao Pedro and Pedro Neto. Alejandro Garnacho, previously our left wing first option, misses out.

That line is supported by a midfield of Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Reece James, who takes up his traditional midfield role as he often does in big games now.

The back four has Malo Gust on the right, Marc Cucurella on the left and Trevoh Chalobah and Wesley Fofana keeping their partnership going in the middle. Robert Sanchez is in goal. It’s a huge test for that group as Arsenal bring their set piece bombardment to town.

Bayern Munich couldn’t cope with it in midweek – will we be able to do better today? We can’t wait to find out.

Here are the full team line-ups for Chelsea vs Arsenal (kick off at 16:30 GMT)

CHELSEA:

Chelsea’s team to face Arsenal.

The other big news is that Cole Palmer is on the bench. It was a surprise announcement from Maresca that the attacker had come back from a foot injury in time to play after having been previously ruled out. We will see him in the second half…

In other news…

Cole Palmer could start today, but even if he doesn’t he will be back in soon, and that means someone is going to miss out. We speculate about who that could be, here.

Ray Parlour has been speaking in the buildup to this game and he said that a draw would be a good result for Arsenal. That’s a big compliment for Enzo Maresca’s team.