Chelsea will end their pre-season fixture list as they take on Borussia Dortmund at Soccer Field in Chicago. The Blues recently celebrated glory in the Premier League Summer Series. Borussia Dortmund are seeking to extend their perfect record in pre-season.
Preview (Chelsea vs Dortmund)
Chelsea won the first Premier League Summer Series event in the United States with seven points from three games against Brighton & Hove Albion, Newcastle United, and Fulham after crushing League Two team Wrexham 5-0 in their opening pre-season friendly. Chelsea needed to win in Maryland on Sunday. They moved above Aston Villa at the top of the table after a thrilling 4-3 victory over Brighton and a 1-1 draw with Newcastle. They did so with a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Thiago Silva and newly acquired Christopher Nkunku in the first half.
Mauricio Pochettino learned a lot from Chelsea’s PL Summer Series victory. Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson have flourished since joining RB Leipzig and Villarreal, respectively, earlier this summer. While Jackson has scored twice in as many starts for the Blues, Nkunku has three goals in preseason. The big-spending West Londoners have stepped up their efforts to bolster Pochettino’s squad. They are allegedly agreeing to deals to sign Monaco center-back Axel Disasi and Rennes midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu. Although the latter is anticipated to immediately go out on loan.
Pre-Season
Before turning their attention to their first Premier League match of the new season at home against Liverpool on August 13. Chelsea are also interested in Moises Caicedo, want to finish their preseason unblemished and beat Dortmund on Thursday. All three BVB goals—a quickfire brace from Donyell Malen on the brink of halftime, followed by the game-winning goal from prodigy Youssoufa Moukoko—were the result of calamitous defending by the Red Devils.
Terzic believes there is still potential for growth from his team as they get closer to the 2023–24 season, which begins for Dortmund with a DFB-Pokal first-round matchup against Schott Mainz on August 12. Despite winning five of their first five games this summer, Terzic believes that his team can still do better. Dortmund played Chelsea for the first time ever earlier this year in the Champions League’s round of 16, however, they lost the two-legged match after Dortmund won at home by a score of 1-0 and then lost by a score of 2-0. Prior to preparing for their final preseason game at home against Ajax on Sunday, BVB will seek retribution on Thursday.
Team News
Gabriel Slonina, Bashir Humphreys, Andrey Santos, and Mason Burstow are all young players who were given starts against Fulham. The former made his debut appearance in goal for the Blues. All four could possibly play again on Thursday. After starting last time out on the substitutes’ bench, players like Reece James, Levi Colwill, Conor Gallagher, Mykhaylo Mudryk, and Jackson will be trying to force their way back into the starting lineup.
Marcel Sabitzer, a newcomer who did make his BVB debut last weekend, may keep his place in the starting lineup. Salih Ozcan, Emre Can, and Julian Brandt compete for a slot in the middle of the pitch. Karim Adeyemi scored the sole goal in the aforementioned 1-0 Champions League victory over Chelsea in February. He may stay in the front three alongside Malen and Sebastien Haller. Terzic has access to three other offensive alternatives in Moukoko, Marco Reus, and Thorgan Hazard.
This summer, neither club has had much trouble scoring goals, so Thursday’s game could be an exciting end-to-end battle. After defeating Man United the last time out, Dortmund will feel confident about winning this match, but we think Chelsea’s young team will perform admirably enough to split the spoils in Illinois.
Chelsea 2 – 2 Dortmund
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