PREVIEW: League Cup Chelsea v Wolverhampton

Ah the glory that is the League Cup (or Capital One Cup, or Carling Cup). What glory it did for Liverpool (and Kenny Daglish) last year. While I highly doubt, and hope not, that Chelsea are aiming to win the cup this year, it does provide one thing that a club like Chelsea can always use; valuable playing time for fringe and younger players. Of course the line between trying to win and risking tiring your key players is always a tough one to juggle, but this year Chelsea should do well to win a few games in order to give the likes of Romeu, Azpilicueta, Piazon, Sturridge, Bertrand, etc. with sufficient game and “tryout” time. With the Club World Cup, FA Cup, UCL, EPL, and the League Cup, games should be ample for the younger players to get sufficient game time and allow the youth to prove themselves to Di Mateo.

Our recent performances have shown that a shakeup may be in the cards. The Mikel – Lampard partnership has now been broken down like an atom in the Nevada desert and with its obvious failings (along with the overall team selection/substitutions at times), a breath of fresh air may be just what the squad needs. Can some of the younger likes shake up the hierarchy of the first team? The League Cup really is the perfect opportunity for players like Romeu, Sturridge, and Moses to showcase their skills in a relatively low pressure situation. It is also a good chance for us to get some of our first glimpses (in a competitive game) of our potential game changer in Mark Marin.

Piazon is another player who most likely is not for this season but has great promise. He looked decent in his showings in the US Tour this summer and has real potential to be a quality front 3 player in the mold of Oscar or Hazard (yet to be seen exactly how he’ll play and where he’ll primarily deployed obviously). Di Matteo would do well to give him the start and show some confidence in our youth team captain.

You’d have to imagine that the starting formation would be based on the same formation as the first team with Di Mateo looking to give the second teamers the chance to get some time within the same formation so that their transition to the first team is seamless.

Guessing the formation for the game today (4-2-3-1):

Turnbull; Azpilicueta, Luiz, Cahill, Bertrand; Romeu, Oscar; Moses, Piazon, Marin; Torres.

Chelsea has won 5 of 6 since Wolves returned to the premier league in 2009 (from which they have subsequently been relegated) with the only loss coming in January of 2010 to an unfortunate Bosingwa own goal during one of the worst of the traditional winter Prem runs by Chelsea in memory.

What do you think? I assume a victory but these League Cup games can always produce a surprise.

KTBFFH