Hello and welcome to football.london‘s live match coverage of Chelsea vs Bayer Leverkusen from Stamford Bridge. Enzo Maresca and his world champions are back home and back in action.
It is belated but the Blues kick off their condensed pre-season tonight with a game against a new look Bayer team without Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong, or Xabi Alonso. It promises to be a good test ahead of next weekend’s Premier League opener, right here, against Crystal Palace.
Before that, Chelsea also host Milan at SW6 on Sunday. Maresca and his players will be aiming to build their fitness and match sharpness as much as possible in a shortened space of time.
New signings Estevao Willian, Dario Essugo, Joao Pedro, and Jamie Gittens could all make their first appearances for Chelsea here today whilst Andrey Santos is in line to feature as well. There will be no Levi Colwill, however, as he is ruled out through injury and will miss most of the season.
For all the team news, live updates throughout the match, analysis, and reaction, don’t go anywhere. The champions of the world are back in town.
