Chelsea vs Dinamo Zagreb

Chelsea and Dinamo Zagreb are set to trade tackles at Stamford Bridge in the final round of the 2022/23 Champions League Group E campaign.

Despite getting their Group E journey off to a nightmarish start, courtesy of a 1-0 defeat in Zagreb on matchday one, Chelsea have locked down a top place in the group with a game to spare. The embarrassing result in Croatia sealed Thomas Tuchel’s fate, forcing the ‘Blues’ to appoint Graham Potter as their new chief of staff. Since taking charge of the London powerhouse, Potter has racked up three wins and one draw in four Champions League matches, including a 2-1 beating of RB Salzburg last time out. More importantly, he led Chelsea to an overwhelming 3-0 win over AC Milan in their most recent Champions League home outing, extending their unbeaten home streak in the competition’s group stages to ten matches (W6, D4). But a humiliating 4-1 defeat at Brighton last weekend might have harmed Chelsea’s spirits.

That threatens to open a window of opportunity for Zagreb to reach a historic milestone by becoming only the second team to beat the ‘Pensioners’ twice in a single Champions League group stage campaign. However, since the matchday-one success, the visitors have experienced a massive downfall, picking up just one point across the subsequent four Group E games. Moreover, Zagreb’s last away win in the Champions League proper dates back to 1998. Since then, the perennial Croatian champions have gone on 20 consecutive road trips in the competition without winning, 17 of which ended in defeat (D3). If that’s not enough to trouble the visiting side, the fact they’ve drawn a blank on their three previous Champions League visits to England may do (D1, L2).