Brighton vs. Chelsea: Match Preview & Predicted Line-ups

Football is back! The Premier League is back! And most importantly, Chelsea FC is back!

Chelsea begin their 2020/21 campaign with a short trip south of London to sunny Brighton where they take on Graham Potter’s Brighton & Hove Albion side at the Amex Stadium.

Chelsea:

After having finished 4th against all odds in the 2019/20 season securing Champions League qualification, when most pundits predicted that Chelsea would finish 6th or worse, and narrowly losing to Arsenal in the FA Cup finals, Lampard’s Chelsea has put a marker down for the rest of the Premier League by doing some tremendous business in the current transfer window to bring in some top quality players such as Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech, Kai Havertz, Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell. Chelsea are also close to completing the signing of Edouard Mendy from Rennes.

However, for their first game of the new campaign, Chelsea would have to do without a majority of their new acquisitions. Ziyech suffered a small knee injury in the pre-season friendly against Brighton ruling him out for a some weeks. Ben Chilwell is working his way back to full fitness following a foot injury sustained at the back end of last season which saw him miss a majority of the post lockdown games for Leicester. Thiago Silva, on account of a prolonged European campaign and playing in the Champions League finals, did not join the Chelsea training till this weekend and is expected to not be available for selection for the game. So, of the new signings, only Timo Werner and Kai Havertz are available for selection for the game against Brighton. Given that Havertz has trained with the side only for some time, it would be interesting to see if he starts the game right away or is slowly brought into the side by Lampard.

Of the others, Pulisic and Azpilicueta, who had suffered hamstring injuries in the FA Cup finals against Arsenal are fit and available for selection. However, it is expected they would not start the game and would play some role coming off the bench to work towards full fitness. Kovacic is suspended for the game thanks to the red card in the same FA Cup finals. Rest of the squad is available for selection.

With Hudson Odoi being the only out and out winger available to play the entire game, it is expected that either Werner or Havertz may start on the right/left wing. While Werner can play off the wings, it is doubtful that for the fiirst game he would not start as the main striker for Chelsea. Havertz played many games as a RW for Leverkusen last season, and given Lampard's recent comments about Havertz versatility and desire to play in various different positions, Havertz may start the game at RW. Chelsea's latest training videos released also show Mount and Loftus Cheek doing a lot of shooting and getting into the box work, which may suggest both may feature as the two No.8s for Chesea in the first game. Lampard’s recent comments rubbishing reports of Kante leaving suggest that Chelsea may see Kante revert to the sole DM position where he was employed just before the lockdown last season in Chelsea’s wins against Liverpool and Everton.

In the defence, Kepa maybe reverted back into the first team. Zouma is expected to be the first name on the team sheet in defence, with Christensen to probably partner with him, as he did against Bayern Munich in Chelsea’s last game of last season. Azpilicueta may not be risked for the whole game, with Reece James starting at RB and Alonso at LB.

Brighton & Hove Albion:

Graham Potter’s Brighton side finished the 2019/20 season seven points clear of the relegation zone in the 15th spot, outdoing expectations of even their most ardent supporters.

Brighton is boosted by the return of Ben White back from loan at Leeds United where he had a stellar year under Marcelo Bielsa, leading to him being subjected to a bid of 30 Million pounds from Leeds which has been rejected by Brighton.

Brighton is further boosted by their inspirational captain Lewis Dunk signing a new 5 year contract ending speculation of a move to Chelsea, and also the arrival of 32 year old Adam Lallana on a free transfer from Liverpool. Neil Maupay will also look to build on a somewhat successful campaign that saw him score 10 goals last season for Brighton. The highly rated RB, Tariq Lamptey, signed from Chelsea in the January transfer window last season, would also look to cement himself in the first team and kick on to achieve his full potential.

Brighton gave a good account of themselves in the friendly against Chelsea, and it looks all set to be a competitive first game for Chelsea away from Home.

Predicted Line-ups:

Chelsea (4-3-3):

Kepa, James, Christensen, Zouma, Alonso, Kante (c), Mount, Loftus-Cheek, Havertz, Werner, Hudson-Odoi.

Substitutes: Cabellero, Rudiger, Azpilicueta, Jorginho , Pulisic, Abraham, Giroud.

Brighton (3-5-2):

Ryan, Lamptey, Veltman, Dunk (c), White, March, Bissmouma, Alzate, Lallana, Maupay, Connolly.

Substitutes: Duffy, Burn, Mac Allister, Gros, Jahanbaksh, Stephens, Trossard.

Our Prediction:

Till last season, Chelsea had a record of not losing the opening games of the season. Hope id that last year was an aberration Chelsea can kick off the campaign with all three points.

Our prediction for the game is 3-1 to Chelsea.

To make it more interesting, we predict the scorers for Chelsea to be Werner, Mount and Alonso. Brighton to score through Dunk via a set-piece (same old).

Do comment with your score and scorer predictions below.