Chelsea v Roma: One more friendly to go

Chelsea play their final game of the pre-season against Roma in Washington’s RFK Stadium tonight (1am Sunday BST) and want to finish their tour on a high, especially after the 3-1 defeat at the hands of Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid.

Both David Luiz and Juan Mata were backing in training ahead of the match having missed the game in Miami and Chelsea fans will be keen to see the Brazilian in action in particular as he’s currently subject to intense speculation over a potential move to Barcelona, but there’s no word if either will feature at time of writing. Jose Mourinho did say that he won’t be taking risks with anyone.

There are no real injury concerns otherwise and the only concern I have over Chelsea’s summer is the amount of games played, including the double header against Manchester City at the beginning of the summer, for a side that took part in more matches than any other club last season as well as having several players on international duty at the Confederations Cup. I’d also question the decision to play an extra game in the US days before a scheduled international break with our first competitive match four days later, it’s a bit congested.

Anyway, all we can hope for is a good performance and no injuries before the squad come back home.

The squad list is as follows:

Petr Cech, Mark Schwarzer, Henrique Hilario, Jamal Blackman;

Branislav Ivanovic, Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Cesar Azpilicueta, Gary Cahill, John Terry, Ryan Bertrand;

Michael Essien, Ramires, Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel, Marco van Ginkel, Juan Mata, Oscar, Victor Moses, Andre Schurrle, Kevin de Bruyne, Eden Hazard;

Romelu Lukaku, Demba Ba, Fernando Torres

It’s been a drag but the pre-season is almost over and proper football will be a welcome distraction from tiresome transfer rumours. The Premier League season is just around the corner, roll on the 18th of August.