Chelsea player ready for most important game of his Blues career so far

Chelsea want to go into the international break on a high says midfielder Romeo Lavia, who has a key role to play today.

Romeo Lavia has been speaking to the media just ahead of kick off as Chelsea prepare to take on Sunderland.

This game comes before an international break, and a win puts the Blues in a really nice position at the top of the table.

“It has been good since the last international break. We need to carry on that way. We have confidence and we need to use it for this game [vs Sunderland],” the midfielder explained.

“We always said it would be a process. That means we are not getting carried away either. Every game is important and is going to be hard. We are very focused in taking it game by game and we are excited to start this one.”

This is a big game for Lavia, who is looking to build on the best week thus far of his Chelsea career. With two 90 minutes completed a week ago, he is trying to progress from simply aiming to stay fit towards actually building some momentum in his form.

Emi Martinez has missed today’s game against Sunderland, despite having trained this week in a mask. Xabi Alonso explained why.

Josh Acheampong misses out today, and there’s an initial update from the ground on the injury he’s got.

The rest of the starting team for the Sunderland game is out and you can see it all here.