Newcastle vs Chelsea – Team News: Maresca does something for first time | OneFootball

Chelsea face Newcastle at St James’ Park in just over an hour, and the teams are in!

Enzo Maresca has named an unchanged team for the third game in a row, the first time all season he’s been able to do that.

And you can understand why. The team played really well against Liverpool last week, and against Everton the week before. The restoration of Romeo Lavia to the lineup following his injury seems to have brought back some of the balance we’ve lacked during the tricky second half of the season.

Maresca has found a setup he likes, and he’s going to stick with it. There remain weaknesses – does anyone trust Robert Sanchez yet? But this is the best we’ve got available, and on the evidence of the last few weeks, they’re good enough to get the job done.

Here are the full team line-ups for Newcastle  vs Chelsea (kick off at 12:00 GMT)

CHELSEA:

Chelsea’s team for huge Premier League clash away at Newcastle.

Everyone knows what’s at stake as Blues prepare for a season deciding game

Playing in midweek is not ideal preparation, especially for a game as crazily early as this 12pm kick off. But Maresca was able to rotate almost totally in midweek, and only Marc Cucurella (who came off after 45 minutes against Djurgarden) plays again from the start today.

We all know what is at stake today. A win takes us to the cusp of the Champions League next season, a defeat is hugely damaging in the other direction. Newcastle have it all to play for, but have some weaknesses in their lineup too.

We just have to hope that the early kick off has dampened what could otherwise be a really intimidating atmosphere at St James’ Park, where we already have a pretty poor record.