The experienced defender missed the impressive 1-1 draw at Manchester City in the Premier League last weekend.
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The first final in England for this season will take place on Sunday when Chelsea play Liverpool in the eagerly-anticipated Carabao Cup showpiece match. Both teams enjoyed a brilliant cup run, as they overcame several obstacles in their way to reach the title clash at Wembley. Even though on paper, in-form Liverpool will be considered favourites, the Blues cannot be taken lightly. Despite their struggles this season, Chelsea seem to have found their feet in recent weeks by getting a few positive results.
Ahead of the game, a lot of discussion has happened around Thiago Silva’s availability. The experienced defender missed the impressive 1-1 draw at Manchester City in the Premier League last weekend. The other topic of debate has been about who will play in between the posts. It will be interesting to see if Djordje Petrovic will continue to feature there or Robert Sanchez, who is fit now, will be included in the Starting XI.
Providing a squad update, Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino, quoted on the club’s website, said, “We need to assess a few players still to see if they can be involved on Sunday. We will know tomorrow if we can recover some players from injury. Thiago has a chance, tomorrow we will see if he is ready to be involved in the game. I have decided who will be the goalkeeper. 99 per cent my team is in my head. I have not told the players yet because always, anything can happen. So I prefer to wait until tomorrow, or maybe after tomorrow.”
The Carabao Cup final against Liverpool at Wembley will hold special significance to Pochettino. As Tottenham Hotspur manager, he has played his home matches at Wembley when their new ground was being built. “It means a lot for us, me and my coaching staff, to have the possibility to arrive in a final and to challenge a team like Liverpool to win our first title here, 11 years after we arrived at Southampton,” he started.
The manager added: “It’s a dream for us and we have the possibility. We have 90 minutes to achieve that and we are going to fight. I think the team is ready, we are going to be very competitive and it is an amazing chance for us. Wembley is like home, because we played a lot there with Tottenham. It feels like going back to your home, because after one-and-a-half years competing there we created a very good bond between Wembley, the team and everyone there. For sure it is going to be special to play there and special if we win. We are going to give our best to compete, be better than Liverpool and deserve to lift the trophy.”
Pochettino also showed sympathy to Jurgen Klopp since Liverpool might miss a lot of players due to injuries. Nonetheless, he still expects a difficult challenge against them in the final. “I understand always. I never like to see your opponent or teams suffer injured players. Of course we empathise because we were dealing with it from the beginning. I understand that always it’s difficult,” he explained.
The manager added: “I think always in the middle when the dynamic is positive, if you suffer some injuries you can manage. You can find solutions that can work easy, but when it is from the beginning and you still need to create a positive dynamic, always you are chasing the rabbit. But I understand that the circumstances are maybe not easy today for the opponent, but the competition is the competition. We cannot complain, we cannot find things that can affect the players who are going to compete. For sure Liverpool are going to be Liverpool and we need to go there thinking that we need to beat Liverpool.”
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