Chelsea vs Preston North End: Confirmed team news for FA Cup third round tie

Chelsea take on Preston North End in the FA Cup third round on Saturday evening and the confirmed team news is in from Stamford Bridge.

Mauricio Pochettino is eyeing domestic cup success this term, with Chelsea still in the Carabao Cup too, to enable them to play European football in 2024-25.

“The Carabao Cup and FA Cup are competitions we need to try to go further and arrive,” Pochettino insisted pre-match. “Before we need to go step by step. The first step is (Saturday).

“It is a really important competition for us because we are not in European competition and in the Premier League we need to improve a lot if we want to play in Europe next season.

“Through the FA Cup or Carabao Cup we can achieve to play next season in Europe. It’s important because from the start we had three competitions and we are still in three competitions.”

The FA Cup tie will get underway at 5.30pm (UK time) and will be available to watch live on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Website in the United Kingdom.

Here is the confirmed team news as Chelsea take on Preston in their first game of 2024.

Chelsea

Starting XI: Petrovic, Gilchrist, Disasi, Colwill, Gusto; Enzo, Caicedo; Sterling, Palmer, Mudryk; Broja

Bench: Bergstrom, Bettinelli, Thiago Silva, Maatsen, Williams, Gallagher, Golding, Madueke, Washington

Preston North End

Starting XI: Woodman; Storey, Lindsay, Hughes; Potts, Whiteman, McCann, Browne, Millar; Keane, Osmajic

Bench: Cornell, Cunningham, Best, Ledson, Frokjaer, Holmes, Woodburn, Evans, Riis