Fans’ preferred lineup against Manchester City: Santos and Sarr to step up

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 04: Andrey Santos of Chelsea celebrates scoring his team's fifth goal during the Emirates FA Cup Quarter Final match between Chelsea and Port Vale at Stamford Bridge on April 04, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images) | Chelsea FC via Getty Images

Chelsea are dealing with a couple big absences for today’s game against Manchester City, including in midfield with Enzo Fernández suspended (by the club) and in defense, where both Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah are injured.

Reece’s replacement at right back is obvious: Malo Gusto. But for the other two, the WAGNH Community were split between a couple options in either case.

In midfield, Moisés Caicedo is a unanimous choice — in fact, he led all players in the voting — but it was a fairly close battle between Andrey Santos and Roméo Lavia for the other starting spot: Santos getting the nod by a 65-52 margin. (Dário Essugo got 3%.)

But it was an even closer battle for the second starting spot in central defense, where Mamadou Sarr (37%) barely edged out Josh Acheampong (36%) by just a few votes. The percentages were low as they split the vote almost down the middle, with Jorrel Hato (26%), Tosin Adarabioyo (23%), and Benoît Badiashile (10%) also taking some of the votes away. This is why you have primaries!

The rest of the lineup pretty much picks itself.

4-2-3-1 (74%)
Sánchez (96%) | Cucurella (97%), Sarr (37%), Fofana (82%), Gusto (93%) | Santos (65%), Caicedo (98%) | Neto (69%), Palmer (97%), Estêvão (89%) | João Pedro (98%)

Alejandro Garnacho (16%) remains well out favor while Liam Delap (5%) and Marc Guiu (2%) are little more than afterthoughts at this point.