Ben Chilwell (£6.1m) is the latest high-profile Chelsea player to be rotated onto their substitutes bench, with Thomas Tuchel frustrating many Fantasy managers by handing a start to Marcos Alonso (£5.6m).
Tuchel takes charge of his second match after replacing Frank Lampard, facing a Burnley side high on confidence from beating Aston Villa 3-2 and ending Liverpool’s 68-game unbeaten Premier League home run.
The German makes four changes from Wednesday’s 0-0 stalemate with Wolves. Chilwell and the front three have made way for Alonso, Mason Mount (£6.8m), Tammy Abraham (£7.2m) and the struggling Timo Werner (£9.2m).
This means that fellow German Antonio Rudiger (£4.5m) has started in place of Kurt Zouma (£5.6m) for five of the last six matches, putting him firmly on FPL managers’ radars ahead of promising fixtures against Sheffield United (a) and Newcastle United (H).
Rudiger was a regular before this season, notching five goals during three seasons. At such a low price, he is an intriguing way to get coverage of Chelsea’s defence whilst Zouma and Reece James (£5.1m) are in and out of the side.
So far, Tuchel seems to prefer a wing-back system, with Callum Hudson-Odoi (£5.7m) taking James’ place on the right. Hakim Ziyech (£8.1m), who played 81 minutes in midweek, doesn’t even make the bench this time.
Kai Havertz (£8.2m) does, alongside Christian Pulisic (£8.2m) and N’Golo Kante (£4.9m), who has recovered from a thigh injury. Pulisic’s largely unproductive seven successive starts has been followed with back-to-hack benchings.
For Burnley, Sean Dyche makes two changes from the comeback win over Villa. Jack Cork (£5.0m) replaces Josh Brownhill (£4.9m) and Matej Vydra (£4.8m) comes in for Jay Rodriguez (£5.8m). Charlie Taylor (£4.5m) is still out with a hamstring problem.
The Clarets have picked up 1-0 away wins at Arsenal and Liverpool this season and will hope to claim another victim today in their quest to drag themselves out of relegation danger.
With Nick Pope (£5.4m) in goal, Burnley have collected four clean sheets from nine matches, although they entered the game week as the league’s second lowest scorers (13), having had the second fewest goal attempts (173).
CHELSEA XI (3-4-3): Mendy; Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva, Rudiger; Hudson-Odoi, Jorginho, Kovacic, Alonso; Mount, Werner, Abraham
BURNLEY XI (4-4-2): Pope; Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Pieters; Brady, Westwood, Cork, McNeil; Wood, Vydra
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