Match preview + Team news - Southampton vs Chelsea

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The first of back to back away games for Chelsea against opponents playing in red and white stripes takes us to England's south coast and a meeting with Southampton.


Chelsea will dock at port Southampton, this Saturday lunchtime. A victory for Chelsea against the Saints would place the Blues only one point behind Leicester City who travel to Aston Villa on Sunday.

With the return of the champions league on Tuesday, Thomas Tuchel will be extremely eager to to continue building the promising start to his managerial tenure at Stamford Bridge. So far the German has gained 13 points from his first five games in the premier league, a tally only bettered at Chelsea by Carlo Ancelotti and Maurizio Sarri both of whom managed to achieve 15 points from their first five games.

Tomorrow's opponents Southampton have lost their last six games in the premier league this is in start contrast with Chelsea's run of 5 consecutive victories in the league at St Mary's this being the best sequence of any visiting team in all of Southampton's history. However, there is no room for complacency here all all clubs head into the final third of the premier league season with plenty still to play for.

Team news for Chelsea 

The man management of Thomas Tuchel has come to the fore in his first month in charge at Stamford Bridge. Tuchel has restored players who were less involved under Frank Lampard, bringing back the likes of Marcos Alonso, Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen not exactly out of conceit but more towards a pragmatic approach to suit his needs; likewise with the midfield pivot of Jorginho and Matteo Kovacic. 

After sating that he needed a stronger performance from Kepa Arrizabalaga which he got from the Spaniard in the FA Cup victory over Barnsley which justified Tuchel's faith in retaining Kepa for the premier league game against Newcastle, enabling Edouard Mendy to rest and recharge his batteries. 

Despite Kepa's first clean sheet since Norwich in July, Mendy will return between the sticks this  weekend, as confirmed by head coach Thomas Tuchel who said 'He is the number one' the idea behind all of this is to motivate all of the squad members by seeing the quality of who could possibly replace them in the team.

Chelsea have also able to have seen very closely the tactical analysis in clear detail and identified that perhaps there could have been calculated risks in team selection against certain opponents. The high pressing game of Southampton's could provide the sternest of tests for this Chelsea team, particular in the midfield, where might see a first start under Thomas Tuchel for N'Golo Kante.

Where Tuchel has concerns is with the lack of precision in the final third with both touches and passes, moments which can ultimately upgrade an opening into a more clear goalscoring opportunity. Tuchel wants Chelsea to become more deadly. 

Alongside the numbers in improvement which he has observed this most notably being the average number of goals going from 1.2 per game to 0.2 Tuchel will be looking to lift the current 1.4 successful strikes per game to the 1.7 which stood before his arrival. 

Achieving this has been made the more difficult with the injury to the ankle sustained by the leading talisman Tammy Abraham in what looked like a challenge which should have been a penalty by Newcastle defender Jamal Lascelles. This provided an opportunity for the other two strikers to be involved. 

Timo Werner playing as an inside left/number 10 role, played a big hand in Olivier Giroud's opener then found the net himself for the first time in the premier league since November. Against Southampton in the reverse fixture Werner netted twice.

The game at St Mary's was pencilled in for the return of Thiago Silva back from his injury and if Silva does return then it will be a case of who drops out, with Andreas Christensen impressing as his replacement , alongside the game against Atletico Madrid being played in Romania to come on Tuesday. Also returning back to training alongside Silva was Kai Havertz who has not featured in four games for Chelsea. 

The referee for this game Anthony Taylor has not been Chelsea's lucky charm whenever he has been in charge of a game involving Chelsea with controversial decisions in both FA cup finals involving the Blues as well as his three defeats in premier league games involving Chelsea.

For more articles on news relating to Chelsea Football Club please visit my twitter account 

Location: London, UK

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