Carling Cup fourth round

Venue: Stamford Bridge

Date: Wednesday, 28 October

Kick-off: 1945 GMT

Another home game for us tonight – clearly a comfort zone for us again, unbeaten in 16 and winning the last seven at Stamford Bridge. Not that tonight’s opponents will necessarily be put off by that, given the sort of game Bolton are capable of giving us. They haven’t done too badly against us at the Bridge and almost salvaged something from 4-0 down last time round.

MANAGER’S THOUGHTS

We face Bolton again in the Premier League on Saturday but ahead of tonight’s Carling Cup clash, Carlo Ancelotti says “It’s important because it’s the first final.  It’s the first title and we have a good opportunity tomorrow. We will change some things but we will pick a very competitive team.”

Gary Megson’s response to Ancelotti’s planned changes is to have a bit of a dig at us for having a decent sized squad, saying “We are not in the luxurious position of having two teams to choose from like some clubs are, but we’ll put out a strong team like we did in the previous rounds. We’ll do the same again, this is a major trophy and we want to win it. Everyone wants to win something at this club. We’ll be having a good go at it, we want to do as well as we can, irrespective of the fact we are playing them again in the league at the weekend.”

SQUAD NEWS

Carlo Ancelotti’s idea of ‘changing some things’ is apparently resting John Terry, Petr Cech, Ricardo Carvalho  and Nicolas Anelka. That makes way for Paulo Ferreira, Alex, Deco, Malouda, Kalou and Daniel Sturridge – who’ll be getting a shirt of his own if this keeps up. Nemanja Matic, Jeffrey Bruma, Fabio Borini, and a bit of experienced back-up in Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and Michael Essien will make up the bench.  Jose Bosingwa (knee), Ashley Cole (ankle) and Yuri Zhirkov (knee) remain out injured.

For Bolton, Joey O’Brien and Sean Davis are long-term absentees with knee trouble, Johan Elmander is set to return to the side.

TEAMS

CHELSEA (from): Hilario, Turnbull, Belletti, Alex, Ivanovic, Ferreira, Deco, Ballack, Malouda, Sturridge, Kalou, J Cole, Essien, Lampard, Drogba, Bruma, Borini, Matic.

BOLTON (from): Jaaskelainen, Al Habsi, Ricketts, Steinsson, Knight, Cahill, A O’Brien, Samuel, Robinson, M Davies, Basham, Muamba, Cohen, McCann, Gardner, Taylor, K Davies, Klasnic, Lee, Elmander.

PREDICTION

Bolton games are never easy to predict and this one isn’t made any easier with the wholesale changes planned. I’m not even gonna try.

Filed under: Domestic Cups, Match Day, Preview