Mykhailo Mudryk finally shows what he can bring to Chelsea with first goal for club in win at Fulham


Good evening and welcome to our live blog of the Monday night football match between Fulham and Chelsea; the action comes to us from Craven Cottage in West London. It started tipping it down in the capital at about six and the forecast is for rain, thunder, cats, dogs and the rest. That could well be an objective correlative for the mood of the Chelsea supporters, who make the short trip to watch their lads struggling along in lowly 15th place. The home side are in 12th.

Chelsea had a poor September in the League, they were beaten at home by Forest and Villa and managed a point away at AFC Bournemouth. They were also soundly beaten by West Ham earlier in the season and another defeat to a London rival would cement this as a grim start to the new Pochettino era.

The manager has refused to blame injuries for his team’s slow start to the season, with as many as 11 players likely to be missing for tonight’s match.

There were three players aged 19 or under with no first-team experience named on the bench when the team drew at Bournemouth two weeks ago, and since then Ben Chilwell’s name has been added to an extensive injury list after he limped out of last week’s win over Brighton with a hamstring problem.

“I cannot use the excuse of injuries,” said Pochettino. “The performances have been good. We cannot blame injuries, I think it’s not fair. We played well in every single game and we deserved more, but for different reasons, we didn’t score and we were not clinical enough.

“But we cannot blame injuries. Of course it’s a factor that we need to improve. When you have your whole squad, you increase the level of the team. You put pressure on the players that play because it’s another player waiting for your place. We’re not winning the games that we deserve, but not because of injuries.”

You’d think having spent one hundred billion dollars or whatever it is over the last few years they should be able to get a team out but there it is.

Fulham manager Marco Silva insisted it is “impossible to compare” his side with Chelsea.

“You think we have an advantage against Chelsea in terms of squad?,” Silva said when asked about the neighbour’s injury woes.

“We are talking about two players who they have got in the last six months (who cost) nearly £250 million (Fernandez and Caicedo), if I say more (about Chelsea spend) it will probably be plus £1billion

“How can you compare? It’s impossible to compare. In the game we are going to give our maximum, but don’t try to say there is an advantage for us.

“We are playing at home and we love playing at home and it will be more special.”



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