Chelsea host Leicester City this weekend at Stamford Bridge in a fascinating FA Cup quarter-final tie.
For Chelsea, they could really do with a deep FA Cup run to make up for a frustrating season to date. The Blues sit mid-table in the Premier League, plus they lost the Carabao Cup final to rivals Liverpool last month.
Meanwhile, Leicester currently sit top of the Championship and have been promotion favourites for most of the campaign. Foxes manager Enzo Maresca certainly deserves a lot of credit for the impact he’s made so far during his first year at the King Power Stadium.
Speaking in Friday’s pre-match press conference, Maresca has been very complimentary of his “fantastic” upcoming quarter-final opponents.
He made one interesting prediction about Chelsea that he’s convinced they’ll soon be back as one of the best teams in this country.
“They are a fantastic team with fantastic players, in a moment where they’re changing things. When you change players and manager and the style, it can take time. For sure they will be one of the biggest teams in England soon,” Maresca said via Leicester’s X account.
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Chelsea will return to the top
We hope the Leicester boss is correct with his statement that Chelsea will soon be back among the elite teams.
If we’re honest, our fear is it’ll still be a few seasons before this project at the Bridge really comes to life. Some of the early mistakes under this ownership are still being fixed.
There’s a sizeable gap to close right now to the very best teams around, but hopefully most of the club’s investments do come good over time.
In the meantime, silverware of any description would be a huge building block for the squad, which is what made the League Cup final defeat at Wembley Stadium so crushing.
Speaking via BBC Sport this week, Chris Sutton has made his score prediction for Sunday afternoon’s cup tie between Chelsea and Leicester.