Chelsea to postpone games vs Brighton and Arsenal in February as FIFA announce Club World Cup dates
According to the Daily Mail, Chelsea would have to rearrange their fixtures against Brighton and Arsenal in February due to their commitment towards the FIFA Club World Cup.
The Blues won the UEFA Champions League in May and subsequently lifted the UEFA Super Cup title in August. The Super Cup victory sealed their semi-final ticket for the FIFA Club World Cup.
However, the competition is set to be held between 3rd and 12th February in 2022. This poses quite a fix for the London club as they shall have to rearrange some of their Premier League fixtures.
Chelsea have games against Brighton & Hove Albion on the 8th of February and a derby against Arsenal on the 12th. They would have to postpone these games and perhaps a potential FA Cup tie if we qualify for the fourth round of the competition.
Massive fixture pile-up
This postponement means that we might not play a Premier League game for nearly a month from the 23rd of January. This, in turn, shall hugely benefit Liverpool and Man City in the title race as they can gain a head-start over us. After all, so many fixtures can result in wholesale changes to the starting XI at times, which can adversely impact team chemistry on the field.
However, our fixture list before leaving for the Club World Cup is not too kind either. We will be facing Liverpool on the 2nd of January, Man City on the 15th before former Chelsea boss Antonio Conte brings Tottenham to Stamford Bridge on the 23rd.
Between all of this, we might also have an FA Cup game and an EFL Cup semi-final, should we get that far. Thus, we will be going into the Club World Cup after facing top opposition and shall have to play several games after the end of the tournament to cover up for the postponed matches.
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We might have the squad depth to sustain all of this, but Thomas Tuchel would surely not want to put it to the test in such a fashion, especially three months before the end of the season. But such is the price for being top dogs.
There are plenty of ways where we can moan about the fixture pile-up being detrimental for us, but a top team like ours should see this as an opportunity to fill up our trophy cabinet. A Club World Cup title would certainly look tremendous in our silverware collection.
