Liverpool face La Liga outfit Villarreal, who are now fourth in the Spanish top flight and have already knocked some big hitters out of the Europa League this season, most notably Bayer Leverkusen and Napoli.
Advertisement
Four Bayern Munich stars made the side, while Real Madrid have three representatives in the team.
A repeat of the 2014 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid is still possible following yesterday’s semi-final draw.
Diego Costa has completed his 3 match suspension and is available.
“He gets goals and for me, a player that gets goals is the most important thing”.
Click through our gallery to see who made the cut.
Pellegrini confirmed on Friday that his influential captain has not recovered from a calf muscle strain but could return for trip to Newcastle on Tuesday.
“If we want to put pressure on the teams around us, it’s obviously better to take three points so maybe that will work in our favour because there’s no pressure on Chelsea to win now”.
Chelsea have lost just one of their last 17 meetings with Manchester City at Stamford Bridge (W11, D5).
Former Arsenal defender Lee Dixon agreed with Keane’s assessment and pointed out that City’s Premier League title push disintegrated when he was out injured for 12 games. The winners of the Capital One Cup, Manchester City, go to the Europa League third qualifying round – but as they are nearly certain to qualify via the league that place will transfer to sixth in the Premier League. However, I think Chelsea will win this and blow the top four wide open.
With Chelsea now hosting City on Saturday, much focus will naturally turn to De Bruyne and his fine form this season – and the statistics do not make for good reading for Blues supporters. They aren’t expected to win these competitions as they were going back as recently as seven or eight years ago.
The Belgian, now one of City’s most influential players after a hugely impressive first season at the Etihad Stadium, had an unsuccessful spell with the London club earlier in his career.
Advertisement
The Spaniard also missed last week’s victory over West Brom as a precaution against an injury that he has been playing with for some time.
