On Thursday night in the Europa League, Legia Warszawa upset Aston Villa 3-2. Chelsea will face Aston Villa on Sunday.
Prior to their Saturday matchup against Aston Villa, Chelsea has received a major boost. On Sunday afternoon, Mauricio Pochettino will welcome Unai Emery to Stamford Bridge with the home team hungry to get back to winning ways and move up the Premier League standings.
The Blues enter the match on the heels of a scoreless draw with Bournemouth. Pochettino was keen for his team to score against the Cherries at the Vitality Stadium after losing to Nottingham Forest shortly before the interval, but they were unable to do so.
While Villa may have defeated Crystal Palace in the English Premier League last weekend, their Europa League campaign got off to a fairly dismal start on Thursday night with a 3-2 loss to Legia Warszawa. Just two days before the Chelsea match, Emery changed his starting team five times.
Calum Chambers and Clement Lenglet replaced Matty Cash and Pau Torres in the backline, and they were sent to the bench. In addition, Youri Tielemans, Leon Bailey, and Jhon Duran received the nod in place of the bench’s Douglas Luiz, Moussa Diaby, and Ollie Watkins.
The Villa manager had intended to rest his star players for the Blues trip, but things didn’t exactly work out as he had hoped. Emery’s team was chasing the game in the second half after Legia Warszawa scored their third and final goal shortly after the break, but they were unable to produce an equalizer.
At the hour mark, Kamara, Duran, and McGinn were replaced by Luiz, Watkins, and Diaby. Then, in the next few seconds, Cash and Jacob Ramsey replaced Chamber and Zaniolo.