Live match preview – Brentford vs Chelsea 22.12.2021

Team news, stats and how to follow ahead of Brentford vs Chelsea in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday; kick-off 7.45pm.

Team news

Brentford manager Thomas Frank says he has no positive Covid-19 cases in his squad ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final against Chelsea.

When discussing his team selection, Frank said: “We will put a strong team out, I don’t know what Chelsea will do. We’ve not played for 10 days now. My idea was to rotate anyway but we will go to win. We’ll be difficult to play against.”

Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has confirmed N’Golo Kante will not be involved at Brentford, with Andreas Christensen and Trevoh Chalobah also major doubts.

“What we did with N’Golo Kante for 90 minutes [against Wolves] was close to irresponsible,” he said. “Will he be involved against Brentford? Simply no. We cannot do this and I will not do it. We will now give him time to recover and prepare for Aston Villa and this is the situation.”

Jorginho is back in contention after testing negative for Covid-19, but Kai Havertz, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ben Chilwell will all again be missing.

Members of Chelsea’s U23 squad have also trained with the first team ahead of Wednesday’s quarter-final, although this will not include Lewis Baker after he also tested positive for Covid.

“We planned now a squad and we had some plans with Lewis Baker, from the academy, and now he’s tested positive,” Tuchel added.

“So we can now start from scratch, and this is what we do right now. We’ve delayed training until late afternoon. Right now we will prepare for the match to be played.”

How to follow

Follow Brentford vs Chelsea in our dedicated live match blog. Highlights will also be published on the Sky Sports digital platforms and the Sky Sports Football YouTube channel shortly after full-time.

Last time out…

Opta stats

• This will be the first-ever League Cup meeting between Brentford and Chelsea. The Blues have eliminated the Bees in all three of their previous domestic cup meetings, doing so in the FA Cup in 1949-50, 2012-13 and 2016-17.
• Chelsea have won six of their last seven meetings with Brentford in all competitions (D1), already picking up a 1-0 victory at the Brentford Community Stadium this season.
• Having never reached the semi-finals in any of their first 60 campaigns in the League Cup, Brentford could now reach the last four of the competition in consecutive seasons.
• Five of Chelsea’s last six League Cup matches against fellow Premier League sides have gone to penalties, including both such meetings in the competition this term (vs Aston Villa and Southampton).
• Brentford are the highest scorers in this season’s League Cup with 12 goals. Only in 1991-92 (15) have the Bees ever netted more in a single campaign in the competition.
• Chelsea have progressed from their last three League Cup quarter-final ties, doing so in 2014-15, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
• Chelsea’s Kai Havertz has scored four goals in his two League Cup appearances, netting a hat-trick against Barnsley last season and the opener against Southampton in round four this term.

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