Opponent Watch: Fulham without three stars for Chelsea clash due to AFCON

Fulham set to miss Alex Iwobi, Calvin Bassey and Fodé Ballo-Touré vs Chelsea

According to Football. London, Fulham will miss their three first-team players during the Africa Cup of Nations. The Cottagers will be without Alex Iwobi, Calvin Bassey, and Fodé Ballo-Touré.

The Cottagers will lose out on extremely talented players, which is fantastic news for the Blues considering their defence-related incompetence and Alex Iwobi’s absence should benefit Chelsea as he is a massive threat to the opposition.

This shouldn’t raise the Blues’ expectations and we should win with our performance not because the opposition missed their key players. Fulham will want to exact revenge on them considering how poorly the team has been defending.

Individual mistakes made throughout the games have cost the West Londoners, and in such important games, Fulham, currently ranked 13th would want to climb up the table.

The same thing we will also expect as a win could see us claim the seventh spot after a very long because we have only languished in either 12^th or 10^th since the last season. Given there are slight chances of securing the top-four spot, we should avoid losing games in the second half of the season.

Losing to Middlesbrough has put massive pressure on Mauricio Pochettino, and a defeat to Fulham will certainly further heat things for the Argentine.

This will be a great opportunity to capitalise on Fulham’s inability to field their finest players because of AFCON but we will also miss Nicolas Jackson who is also participating in the AFCON.

A win against Fulham will be a massive boost for the players’ confidence as our next match will be against Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup semi-final next week.

More Chelsea News

• Chelsea defender Malang Sarr on Napoli’s transfer radar
• West Ham United and Bayern Munich continue to be linked with a move for Chelsea star Trevoh Chalobah
• Wayne Bridge blames Chelsea players for slow progress under Mauricio Pochettino

Since they have only triumphed once in their previous five games, Marco Silva’s team will be better equipped to defeat us because they are undoubtedly in a similar predicament. The pressure will be on the Portuguese manager to change the result. We can’t afford to lose opportunities the like we did against Middlesbrough, so let’s hope we maintain our clinical edge against Fulham.