Chelsea's second string and the team they field tomorrow might look something like this:

----------------Schwarzer-----------------

Azpilicueta-----Cahill----Luiz------Bertrand

------------Mikel-----Ramires-------------

Willian------------Mata----------De Bruyne

------------------Eto'o--------------------


We've looked dead out there on the field recently and a lot of players could do with this game off. We'll still field a strong side but we could do with resting a few players who need to recover for the Liverpool game. Giroud looked absolutely shattered in the last half hour of the Palace game. Our priority should be to keep our players fit for the league and CL games. A League Cup run would be nice for the fans but I don't think it'll be relevant to league form because, as Moe says, pretty much all premier league teams play weakened line-ups for it.

It's quite clear to me that our league form in the second half of last year was linked to only playing one game a week. And it wouldn't be a surprise to see us slipping away a bit with trying to keep up with 2 games a week with a fairly thin squad. Too early for me to even guess whether we can challenge for the league but for us to have a chance we need to keep the energy levels that we showed in the last couple of months. The next couple of league games will be six-pointers. If we beat Liverpool and win at Old Trafford the belief and momentum we get from that will be like when we competed away at Bayern last season. It will surpass confidence the players can get from winning the league cup.