Chelsea are hoping to celebrate reaching their first European final since 2013 when they host Eintracht Frankfurt at Stamford Bridge in London on Thursday in the second leg of their UEFA Europa League semi-final tie. The first leg ended 1-1, young striker Luka Jovic opened the scoring for Eintracht Frankfurt but then Pedro made it all square for Chelsea with a fine effort. That was the first ever direct meeting between these two teams. Eintracht Frankfurt have won just two of the eight European matches they played against English teams and both of those wins were on German soil, while Chelsea have won ten of their twenty matches against German teams.
Chelsea can have a good season finale after all, they have taken advantage of the various slip-ups that plagued Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United and they managed to secure a top-four Premier League finish with a game to spare. Last weekend they grabbed a comfortable 3-0 home victory over Watford and moved up to third place in the league table, a place that they are guaranteed to keep if they beat Leicester in the last league match of the campaign. As for the Europa League, reaching the final would definitely be a big plus for under-fire boss Maurizio Sarri, and winning the trophy could give the club the boost that they need. Antonio Rudiger and Callum Hudson-Odoi are still sidelined for the home side, while N'Golo Kante picked up a hamstring injury at the weekend and is a doubt.
Eintracht Frankfurt had a sensational Europa League run so far, their best campaign since 1980, when they also won the UEFA Cup. This season they knocked out Shakhtar Donetsk in the Round of 32, then defied the odds to get past Inter Milan, and in the quarter-finals they fought back to beat Benfica 2-0 at Frankfurt after a 4-2 defeat in Portugal. Last weekend they had a bit of a slip-up in the Bundesliga as they got hammered 6-1 at Bayer Leverkusen, a result that puts their fourth place under siege with two matches left in the season. Mijat Gacinovic and Luka Jovic started that match on the bench but they were introduced after just 37 minutes, when the score was already getting out of hand. Taleb Tawatha, Marc Stendera, Marco Russ and Sebastien Haller are sidelined for the visitors.
Probable line-ups:
Chelsea: Arrizabalaga - Azpilicueta, Christensen, Luiz, Emerson - Kovacic, Jorginho, Loftus-Cheek - Willian, Giroud, Hazard
Frankfurt: Trapp - Abraham, Hinteregger, Hasebe - Costa, Rode, Fernandes, Kostic - Gacinovic - Rebic, Jovic
My prediction: Chelsea to win 2-1, it's been great for Frankfurt so far but this is the end of the line, the Blues are too experienced to let this qualification slip away in front of their own fans.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Chelsea win - 1.36
Draw - 5.00
Frankfurt win - 7.50
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