Chelsea team news vs Aston Villa: Pochettino confirms injury news on Caicedo, Madueke, and more...

Also in this, YOUR preferred linup choices for Sunday!

Afternoon all,

Jumping on for a bit of bonus content today just because!

Chelsea face Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon in the 2pm kick off as you will all be well aware of, and Mauricio Pochettino has just sat down with the media for his pre-match press conference. Key quotes further below as well as the lineup choices that YOU have all voted on!

First of all, the big question on everyone’s lips is will Moises Caicedo be involved on Sunday and is his injury worse than feared? Good news, bad news, and some news in between on all of that.

Basically Caicedo will have a fitness test tomorrow after training for the first time all week just today. They will then make a decision on his involvement for Sunday tomorrow. So what that means is that his injury is not any worse than first feared, at least in terms of anything serious, which is great news. It matches up with what I was initially told from my best source at the start of the week as I reported on here, and that is that Caicedo will return to full training this week (which he has), and they are hopeful for his involvement on Sunday (which they still are).

Marc Cucurella and Noni Madueke both available again as well, as confirmed by Poch today. Poch even mentioned that Armando Broja might actually be involved Sunday as well, but they will make a decision on that tomorrow as well. He was expetced to play U21s first, so that one is a surprise.

So that’s the team news, and we will go through our lineups below. But lets see the key quotes that Poch has said today first.

Quotes via Football London

Jackson one card away from a ban, have you had a word?

Today we were talking about that as we had a meeting with him and also Enzo. A striker, four yellow cards only for talking with the referee. Not because of that, it is so cheap and it is going to bring a difficult situation to the team. He understookd. Jackson is young, he is going to be a fantastic player.

He needs to be calm and relaxed.

We are talking about young players, you can blame me or blame us but they need time. There's no doubt we have amazing talent but they need time.

He needs to be clever and not protest to the referees. Maybe it's because it's his normal behaviour on the pitch, this season change the rules, he came from Spain and it's different and the change is more sensitive about this. It is about adapting. I hope on Sunday we are not talking about him being clever and first action he is getting a yellow card.

What are the owners feelings?

We talk, we talking with sporting director, they are supporting the project. They are not disappointed because we have similar feelings about the project.

Confident goals will come? Broja the answer?

It's the same situation that we can talk about many players. Broja arrives and maybe will be involved at the weekend but it's after nine months of not competing. We cannot put responsibility on him. The responsibility must be on the team and the collective effort. We cannot expect Broja will score with every single touch, he needs to feel the competition.

Frustrating to watch at the moment?

I am not frustrated because I think the team is performing well and missing many key players. I am disappointed because I think many teams with less score more. That is why we feel bad. The players deserve more. The only way to find what we want is to keep pushing, keep playing. I am so happy with how the team feel after Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest, they really care and they really want to win games and I think this week was good to work hard.

Good opportunity to get another win?

Always it is an opportunity. We need to win, we need to keep going, playing well. We need to be more clinical in front of goal and convert chances into goals. That is the most important thing because in all the data we are in top four but after in front of goal we are in the bottom and that is why we don't have the points that we deserve. Football is about winning games.

Advantage with Villa playing last night?

We didn't deserve to be in the Europa League. They have a good squad, they are prepared to compete in Europe. For us, because of the circumstances, against Bournemouth 15 players then we need to use three or four players from the academy. We were talking, we need time. Of course we will be competitive when the moment arrives.

Relationship with Emery?

We have a good relationship, he started to coach earlier than me, I was after. I was in Spain in different clubs. He is a great coach, and I have a good relationship with the staff of Aston Villa. It will be good to see him.

Gallagher spoke about how he found he was Chelsea captain, what does he bring?

He was captain about Wimbledon also. He is supposed to be captain. It's nice. It is normal if you see the starting XI versus Bournemouth, he was also captain versus Wimbledon, it's not a big thing to create a party. He can be a captain, he is from Chelsea and it is perfect for him to represent the team.

How important to get the fans onside at Stamford Bridge?

I really believe they are going to be behind us. It's normal when you don't win, all are disappointed and like I said in my press conference, it's normal they show their feelings and emotions after a draw.

We have to understand our circumstance, I'm not going to say they need to understand our circumstance.

Badiashile setback?

Yeah but it was in a different muscle but it was minor, it was small. He was training with Reece James. Chukwuemeka and James are very close to being with the team to start to train.

Positive news on Caicedo, Madueke and Cucurella?

Moi [Caicedo] we need to assess tomorrow, he was training in an individual way, not with the team until today.

Noni was involved also during the week in training. Maybe we need one day more, maybe Broja can be involved, maybe.

No European football, a blessing in disguise this week?

Yes because it's about us recovering players from injury. The circumstance it is good to have time to work. It was a very good week, we worked very hard with the players we have.

For the fans, of course it is difficult because usually Chelsea are involved in the competition.

So, IF Caicedo is fit to start, this is YOUR chosen Xl:

The closest call in this was Thiago Silva or Axel Disasi, and it was SO close. Disasi edges it with 51%.

I largely agree with the above choices as well, especially the setup. I’d probably still have Silva over Disasi, and I explained in the week, Madueke over Mudryk.

Now IF Caicedo does not make the cut, the backup choice is the same formation as above and same player choices, but Lesley Ugochukwu in for Caicedo.

It’s fun doing these, but I think we all know that Poch wont be lining up like this. I feel it will probably be the same as Sunday and we will have Caicedo on the bench from the start as he hasn’t trained much.

Either way, up the Chels!!

Simon Phillips