Chelsea vs Morecambe – Team News: Injured pair get first starts of 2025

Chelsea face Morecambe at Stamford Bridge in just under an hour, and the teams are in!

It’s a heavily rotated team, as you’d expect, with some interested names and faces thrown in for what SHOULD be a walk in the park at home.

In goal, Filip Jorgensen makes his first start since the loss to Ipswich on New Year’s Eve. In defence. The central defensive partnership is Axel Disasi and Tosin Adarabioyo. Renato Veiga plays at left back, but the big news is that Reece James returns for the first time in months to play at right back. If he can make it through an hour unscathed today we will be absolutely delighted.

The midfield has another player returning from injury – Romeo Lavia has had a very stop-start season, and we’re desperate for him to get a run of games together. He too should be expected to play an hour and then be taken off.

He plays with two numbers tens to make a crazy attacking team – Joao Felix and Christopher Nkunku. You wouldn’t see that sort of team risked against anyone but a side at the bottom of League 2…

In the front 3, Pedro Neto starts with Tyrique George (the only academy player to start, along with James) out wide, with Marc Guiu leading the line.

Here are the full team line-ups for Chelsea vs Morecambe (kick off at 15:00 GMT)

CHELSEA:

Our hopes for today are lots of goals to create a great atmosphere at Stamford Bridge, more academy players coming off the bench, and of course, a safe return to action for James and Lavia, hopefully setting them up for more minutes on Tuesday night when we play Bournemouth in the league. Their return could be timed perfectly to make them a key factor in setting up a strong second half of the season.