ROBERTO DI Matteo revealed yesterday there were still FA Cup final places up for grabs in his Chelsea side as he refused to rule out comebacks for David Luiz and Gary Cahill.
Caretaker manger Di Matteo is confident his squad will not hold back in tonight’s Premier League game against Newcastle, regardless of the match taking place less than three days before their Wembley meeting with Liverpool.
The Stamford Bridge clash against the Magpies is arguably more important than Saturday’s showpiece, with Di Matteo’s number one priority ensuring Chelsea qualify for next season’s Champions League.
And while the Italian has not resorted to banning any mention of the final ahead of tonight’s game, he left no doubt where his focus lay.
“We’ve not talked about it at all,” he said of the Liverpool game, insisting he had yet to pick his team for Wembley. Asked if that meant performances against Newcastle would be taken into account, he said: “Yes”. He also added: “I look a little bit more back and look at maybe the last three or four weeks and the way we played and the different players in positions and so on.”
It would only be human for players to subconsciously hold back tonight for fear of injuring themselves, but Di Matteo said: “We cannot allow ourselves to think like that and I think we’ve shown before that we don’t do that, in the semi-final against Spurs before the Champions League semi-final, and at Arsenal and so on. I don’t think that’ll be an issue for us.”
Defenders Luiz and Cahill will miss the match, both with hamstring injuries, but both were seen running yesterday at Chelsea’s training ground.
Di Matteo said they will be reassessed again tomorrow and Friday and while it looks unlikely Cahill in particular will be fit for the weekend, Di Matteo was optimistic of both being back before the Champions League final.
He said: “Hopefully, they’ll be ready before. I have hope but we don’t know yet.”
Winning next month’s clash with Bayern Munich would, of course, make the outcome of tomorrow’s match redundant for Chelsea.
And Di Matteo would have no qualms knocking the Magpies or Tottenham out of the Champions League were one of them to finish fourth in the Premier League.
“For us, it’s important that we try to win it, and whatever the consequences are for somebody else doesn’t really bother us,” he said.
But Di Matteo was determined to leave nothing to chance, starting with a win tonight that would see them leapfrog their opponents and finish the evening in at least fifth place.
Chelsea are arguably in the best form of all of the contenders to finish fourth after Newcastle were thrashed 4-0 at Wigan on Saturday. The Blues recorded their biggest win of the season the following day by beating QPR 6-1, Fernando Torres scoring his first hat-trick for the club.
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