English League Sunday Night At Stamford Bridge: Chelsea Needs A Minister Of Religion, Liverpool Comes With Tropies

JAKARTA - The Premier League match for the 35th week of the 2024/2025 season will bring together Chelsea vs Liverpool at Stamford Bridge Stadium, Sunday 4 May at 22.30 WIB. This match is the Blues' gamble to secure tickets for the Champion League next season.

On the other hand, Liverpool travel weightless after locking up the Premier League title this season after winning at Anfield against Tottenham Hotspurs with a landslide score of 5-1.

Liverpool may have confirmed the title, but they still have to wait until the last week of the season to officially lift the trophy.

For the Reds, the match against Chelsea is more of a celebration and momentum-preserving event. However, for Chelsea, this match means much bigger.

Sitting in fifth place with the same points as Nottingham Forest, which still leaves one game and Aston Villa who also have 60 points. This makes the Blues unable to confirm tickets to the Champions League next season.

Victory over Liverpool became crucial in order to keep opportunities back in Europe's highest event, and became an important target in Enzo Maresca's first season as coach.

While it has never won in the last 10 meetings against Liverpool in all competitions, with seven draws, three losses, pressure and urgency at the end of this season could be a trigger for Chelsea to break that poor record.

Chelsea did slip in the period from December to February with only two wins from 10 matches, which kept them out of the title race.

However, since then they have risen. In the last eight matches, Chelsea have only lost once, even from Arsenal, through Mikel Merino's single goal and managed to beat Tottenham, Fulham, and Everton. This performance revived their hopes of finishing in the top four.

Meanwhile, Arne Slot's Liverpool managed to break a series of seven consecutive draws against Chelsea with a 4-1 win at Anfield last season. They continued with two more wins, including in last season's League Cup final and in a meeting in October.

Ahead of the Chelsea vs Liverpool match, Slot said that his squad was in almost full condition. Conor Bradley is certain to return to training and have the opportunity to appear, while Joe Gomez still has to be sidelined due to a hamstring injury. With the title in hand, Slot hinted that he would rotate, giving several coating players the opportunity to play.

However, there is no rest time for Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian striker is now collecting 28 league goals this season and only needs one more goal to match Didier Drogba's record as the top scorer for players over 30 in one Premier League season.

Chelsea itself still has to deal with injury problems. Maresca stated that Robert Sanchez and Christopher Nkunku were still waiting for the results of further investigations after missing the previous match.

Sanchez is more likely to appear, while a number of players, such as Wesley Fofana, Omari Kellyman, Marc Guiu, Aaron Anselmino, and Mykhaylo Mudryk (scorsing) are confirmed to be absent.

However, Maresca seems ready to rotate similar to Slot. Nicolas Jackson, who scored twice from the bench against Djurgardens and the winner's goal over Everton, is in good form, including scoring goals from outside the penalty box, the first for him in the Premier League.