Chelsea will be doing all they can to focus on the actual football when they welcome Newcastle to Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Thomas Tuchel and his side will have a number of questions about their future needing answered, but they’ll need to put that to the back of their head and focus on the task at hand if they are to take all three points from an improved Newcastle team.

Unfortunately for the Chelsea manager, there will be a number of issues for him to overcome ahead of Sunday’s game.

In defence, Tuchel will still be without Ben Chilwell and Reece James, as well as Marcos Alonso and Cesar Azpilicueta. Which means he’ll likely have to resort to a back four of Bounna Sarr, Antonio Rudiger, Thiago Silva and Marcus Christensen.

There are no fresh midfield issues for the Stamford Bridge side, so we can expect to see a standard midfield trio of Jorginho, N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovavic.

Christian Pulisic and Callum Hudson-Odoi are both doubts for the game, so Tuchel will likely turn to Mason Mount and Hakim Ziyech to partner Kai Havertz in attack, with the German striker’s recent form putting him ahead of Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner.

How Chelsea could line up against Newcastle