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."
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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