All eyes on Seattle!

Will Chelsea shine in America without it’s front line?

Tonight, Chelsea have their first pre-season outing against the Seattle Sounders and it’s a game we are all looking forward to.

As we know we have a pretty broken up group at the moment with Juan Mata being in London with the Spanish Olympic team, Ryan Bertrand with the GB Team, John Terry being allowed extended time off due to his Euro2012 involvement, his court case commitments, Rual Meireles and Florent Malouda & Fernando Torres because of Euro2012, so the team is far from complete till the Olympics are over.

JT and Fernando will join Frank Lampard, David Luiz and Ramires, who started with the team this week.

So what of tonight’s game? I would say, expect plenty of changes to begin with. I don’t think Ramires, Lampard or Luiz will start tonight and maybe have only a short involvement in the game.

However, for the likes of Hazard, Marin, De Bruyne and the returning Yossi Benayoun, it’s a chance to really impress.

Sounders are in the midst of their season and their fitness should be way ahead of ours, but for Chelsea it’s all part of the preparation to the league starting in a month or so.

I wouldn’t expect anything outstanding from Chelsea at the moment as Roberto Di Matteo said, it’s just the next step as we look to transfer what we have been doing on the training pitch into a proper game.

One thing is for sure, the interest across the pond in the game will be huge because we are the European Champions ( I still love saying that! ) so the Sounders will be well up for this one.

It will be interesting to see how the new boys do!