Chelsea forced to deal with ‘not ideal’ Premier League decision v Newcastle United - Magpies unaffected

A win for Eddie Howe’s side on Sunday would mean they are just one win away from securing Champions League qualification. Defeat, however, would see the Blues open up a gap on them and make them reliant on results elsewhere to qualify.

It is set to be another huge match on Tyneside - one that the Magpies have had seven days to prepare for. Following their hard-earned draw against Brighton at the Amex Stadium on Sunday, Howe’s side have had all week to rest, recuperate and prepare for what is their biggest league game of the season to date.

Their opponents, meanwhile, played slightly later than them on Sunday and have a clash against Djurgarden to navigate before they head to the north east. Chelsea are just 90 minutes away from a first ever Conference League final and whilst they welcome their Swedish opponents to London with a 4-1 lead from the first-leg, needing to put another 90 minutes in legs of his squad is far from ideal for Enzo Maresca’s preparations.

Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea admission

Whilst the clash between the Blues and Magpies was always set to be played on Sunday due to Chelsea’s Conference League participation, its scheduling for a midday kick-off comes with TNT Sports holding the rights to broadcast the game. TNT usually have the early Saturday kick-off, although that can be pushed back to 8pm if one of the sides involved has been involved in European action on the preceding Wednesday.

With Sky Sports already showing games at 2pm and 4:30pm on Sunday, Newcastle and Chelsea will begin a triple-header of games to be shown on TV in the United Kingdom at midday - giving the Blues very little turnaround time from their European semi-final.

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Maresca, though, believes his squad will be capable of dealing with the tight turnaround and has stressed that he will play a strong team against Djurgarden, despite being three goals ahead in the tie: “Tomorrow [v Djurgarden] is the game,” Maresca said. “That is our focus.

“For sure, 48 hours after tomorrow, to then play at 12pm on Sunday is not ideal and there is not a lot of time to recover. That is just something you have to deal with when you play in many competitions.

“It happened last week, we arrived back from Sweden at 5am in the morning and we played the game on Sunday. We will try to be ready for tomorrow’s game and then focus on Sunday.

He continued: “It is a European competition that we are going to try to win.‘The next step is to reach the final, but first we must try to do our job tomorrow.

“If you remember the second game at home against [Legia] Warsaw, we started with Nicolas Jackson and Cole Palmer. It was a strong team. We try in every game to start with the best XI, so we will start tomorrow with the best XI for us in this game.”

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