Chelsea head out to Rome this week for matchday four of this seasons Champions League competition. The Blues currently head Group C, and results in previous games have left Antonio Conte`s side in a relatively comfortable position in terms of qualification.
The top two teams move through to the knockout stage, which will be played in the new year. For Chelsea it`s simple, a win in Rome on Tuesday will see them progress to the round of sixteen, with two games remaining.
The home tie against Roma two weeks ago saw Chelsea let slip a two goal lead before Eden Hazard grabbed a late equaliser at Stamford Bridge. Roma played that game like a home fixture and attacked Chelsea from the off. It will be interesting to see if they`re as offensive in the return game. Roma can ill afford to lose with Atletico Madrid facing a home tie against Qarabag. That said the Spaniards were unable to defeat the Azerbaijani`s in the previous round of games.
Chelsea have good away record in the Champions League and recorded some famous results on their travels. Not least the 2012 final defeat of Bayern Munich in their own stadium.
Antonio Conte is likely to be able to field one of his strongest sides of the campaign as players begin to recover from injury and regain full fitness. N`golo Kante is back training and may be available for selection. Having finally got his debut out of the way, Danny Drinkwater could also feature and link up with his former partner at Leicester City.
Antonio Conte`s only probable doubt for the game will be Victor Moses, who is still out with a hamstring injury. Any sort of result will see the fabricated media pressure on the manager ease.
On the other hand Roma are still struggling with injuries and their manager Eusebio di Francesco will have to juggle his squad. Over in Italy Calciomercato are reporting that Roma picked up injuries to Gregoire Defrel and Bruno Peres in the weekends 1-0 defeat of Bologna. However, they had injuries two weeks ago and it didn`t appear to affect them then, so we shall have to see.
Following the game on Tuesday, Chelsea have a home fixture on Sunday against Manchester United with a late 16:30 kick-off time. After that comes another international break and more recovery time for those not given the call of duty.
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