Our Chelsea fans here in the Transfer Tavern are hoping for a big performance tonight against high-flying Burnley, to continue that winning feeling from their weekend’s comeback victory against the Saints. With the Clarets harbouring ambitions of catching Chelsea, a win for the Blues will put an end to that small glimmer of hope they hold.

The Blues have been on a horrendous run of results this calendar year, having only won four times this year so far in the league. After the Burnley match tonight, Chelsea go into an FA Cup semi-final game against Southampton, where they’ll be hoping to make easier work than they did last weekend.

With that in mind, our regular Blues in the bar think this could shine a light on their dismal season and more importantly Antonio Conte’s reign at the club, with many predicting he will be gone in the summer.

Following the Blues’ slip out of the top-four recently, Conte will be looking at not letting the slide go any further tonight. With that in mind, Conte needs to look at his players and in particular, the ones he’s brought in since he came to the club in 2016, to give him a big performance when the Italian needs it most.

However, with the big semi-final on the horizon, Conte could rest these TWO stars in a bid to save his season…

N’Golo Kante

Conte needs his defensive midfielder to really be at his top sparkling best come weekend. Chelsea have leaked several goals in recent Premier League games, so the first port of call will be to surely plug the leaky bucket, and Kante needs to be the catalyst for that against the Saints.

If Chelsea are to progress to the final then nothing but a third win of the season over the Saints is acceptable at weekend, and Kante can majorly help towards that.

Olivier Giroud

Even though the Frenchman has only arrived at the club in January, he has found his feet sharpish. Giroud has been after regular first-team action for a while and is one of the reasons he left Arsenal in the first place.

Our Blues in the pub really do hope that Giroud can find the back of the net and on a regular basis like he has been doing, especially with the club so close to a final at Wembley. He looked like the player Chelsea signed on Saturday and Conte will surely want to rest him ready for the big game, should he need him to make a similar impression on the match.