{"id":848,"date":"2026-04-25T21:57:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=848"},"modified":"2026-04-25T21:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:57:23","slug":"predicted-chelsea-xi-vs-leeds-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=848","title":{"rendered":"Predicted Chelsea XI vs Leeds United"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"mvp-content-main\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkchelsea.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/cole-palmer-chelsea-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Is Cole Palmer England's most important player right now?\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Chelsea are on a streak of five winless matches in the Premier League and fired Liam Rosenior midweek but must now turn their attention to the FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United as it is the only piece of silverware they can win this season.<\/p>\n<p>Callum McFarlane has been entrusted with interim responsibilities between now and the end of the campaign, and here is the starting eleven he is expected to deploy on Sunday for the Blues at Wembley Stadium.<\/p>\n<div class=\"khvzt69ed180218f99\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-225247\" src=\"https:\/\/football-talk.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FootballTalk_New_Chapter-rememore.png\" alt=\"Rememore new hair\" width=\"400\" height=\"333\"\/><\/div>\n<p><strong>Goalkeeper<\/strong> \u2013 Robert Sanchez is expected to retain his place in the starting eleven ahead of Filip Jorgensen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Defenders<\/strong> \u2013 Liam Rosenior played five defenders in the team against Brighton &#038; Hove Albion on Tuesday, but this time around, the Blues may revert to a four-man backline. Malo Gusto and Marc Cucurella may be the right and left backs, respectively, whereas Wesley Fofana and Trevoh Chalobah could partner with one another in the heart of the backline.<\/p>\n<h2>Palmer and Garnacho back<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Midfielders<\/strong> \u2013 Moises Caicedo is expected to start in midfield and Enzo Fernandez could return to play beside him in a double pivot having played as the number 10 in the previous match. In doing so, he could replace Romeo Lavia. Meanwhile, Cole Palmer could be back in the side as the attacking midfielder after missing the midweek clash.<\/p>\n<p>Pedro Neto might be employed down the right flank with Estevao Willian injured, and Alejandro Garnacho might return to the line-up as the left winger.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Forward<\/strong> \u2013 With no clarity over Joao Pedro\u2019s fitness, Liam Delap might continue to lead the line for Chelsea.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how they might look on paper.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fotmob.com\/api\/data\/lineup-builder\/team?players=789571:Robert%20S%C3%A1nchez,1197250:Malo%20Gusto,917802:Wesley%20Fofana,793907:Trevoh%20Chalobah,873289:Marc%20Cucurella,1137668:Mois%C3%A9s%20Caicedo,1137705:Enzo%20Fern%C3%A1ndez,843040:Pedro%20Neto,1096353:Cole%20Palmer,1203665:Alejandro%20Garnacho,1113903:Liam%20Delap&amp;formation=4-2-3-1&amp;teamId=8455&amp;showTeamBadges=false&amp;showCountryBadges=false&amp;lang=en&amp;currency=EUR&amp;measurementSystem=metric\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<!--mvp-post-tags--><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<!--posts-nav-link--><\/p>\n<div class=\"mvp-org-wrap\" itemprop=\"publisher\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/Organization\">\n<div class=\"mvp-org-logo\" itemprop=\"logo\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"50\" src=\"https:\/\/football-talk.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/new-logo.png\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/football-talk.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/new-logo.png\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><!--mvp-org-logo--><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"Football Talk | Premier League News\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><!--mvp-org-wrap-->\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea are on a streak of five winless matches in the Premier League and fired&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}