Chelsea vs. Fulham, Premier League Summer Series Friendly: Preview, team news, how to watch

As the summer tour rolls on amid all the inclement weather on the East Coast, Chelsea are set to take on friendly neighbors Fulham in our fourth preseason and third and final “Premier League Summer Series” game later today. This fixture normally takes place within a two-mile radius in South West London. This time we do it in (the) Washington, DC (area).

Did you know there was an official table of standings for the PL Summer Series? We could yet win it! (If we get more points today or score more goals than Villa, who play Brentford in the first game of today’s double-header.)

Trophies, baby!

Premier League

Date / Time: Sunday, July 30, 2023, 2:45pm EDT; 19:45 BST; 12:15am IST (next day)
Venue: FedExField, Landover, MD
Forecast: Sunny and warm

On TV: Sky Sports Main Event (UK); NBC (USA); Star Sports Select HD2 (India); SuperSport Premier League (NGA); elsewhere
Streaming: Sky Go (UK); Peacock (USA); Hotstar (India); DStv Now (NGA)

Chelsea team news: Mauricio Pochettino was unable to hold his pre-match press conference due to the team bus getting delayed by bad weather, but as far as we know, there are no injury concerns in the traveling squad at the moment. And in even better news, Noni Madueke looks set to make his preseason debut after working out the remaining kinks of an injury left over from his international duty earlier this summer.

With two weeks to go until our season opener against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s play showed some promising signs against Newcastle on Wednesday — maybe not in terms of the scoresheet, but in terms of match control and patterns of play. So hopefully we can build on that as well as keep building fitness for the season ahead.

Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images

Fulham team news: Fulham surprised many with a 10th place finish last year, their highest in two decades, and so far they’ve managed to hang on to the core of that team — including re-signing Willian, convincing manager Marco Silva to say, and, most notably, keeping Aleksandr Mitrović.

Their leading goalscorer attempted to force a move to the Saudi Pro League but has now seemingly made his peace with staying. Fulham signed Raúl Jiménez from Wolves to potentially replace him in the meantime, now they both might be in the same team. Mitrović is not likely to play against Chelsea, having just arrived to join camp, but Jiménez is in line for his first minutes of the summer.

Fulham did suffer an injury scare with João Palhinha in their last game, a 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa, but it looks like the in-demand midfielder has avoided any serious damage to his knee. He’s day-to-day, though also subject to plenty of rumors and speculation.

Previously: Good vibes only.