Liverpool and Chelsea meet at Wembley in Sunday's League Cup final - but the Londoners will have a free week to prepare for the showpiece final
Chelsea's preparation for Sunday's League Cup final against Liverpool will be uninterrupted as their Premier League fixture against Tottenham Hotspur was not rearranged for midweek.The Londoners were due to host Spurs at Stamford Bridge on Friday, February 23 but that fixture was postponed after Chelsea sealed a 6-2 aggregate victory over Middlesbrough in last month's League Cup semi-final.
However, unlike Liverpool's hosting of Luton Town - which was due to be held at Anfield on Saturday, February 24 but has since been brought forward to February 21 - it was unable to be rearranged by the Premier League. That is because UEFA doesn't allow domestic fixtures to be aired at the time as European games, with only a handful of fixtures receiving special dispensation to do so in years gone by.
According to This is Anfield, Chelsea's fixture against the North Londoners had been selected for broadcast by Sky Sports. However, such agreements will not allow it to be played on either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Conference knockout rounds take place.
Liverpool's fixture against Luton, meanwhile, was not selected by either Sky Sports or TNT Sports and was therefore allowed to be moved to Wednesday night at Anfield - just four days before the 2024 League Cup final.
For Chelsea, such an occurrence means Pochettino will have a clear schedule ahead of facing Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday afternoon, while Liverpool will be preparing for their 11th game of 2024 already.
Jurgen Klopp will hope his side can make it through Wednesday's clash with the Hatters unscathed, especially after injuries to Diogo Jota and Curtis Jones somewhat overshadowed Saturday's 4-1 thrashing of Brentford.
"We have to see how much it costs us, we don't know that yet," said Klopp, speaking in his post-match press conference. "Curtis got a knock on the lower part of his shin, or above the ankle. We will see what that means. It was what he felt, but he was not 100% sure. That Curtis cannot play on tells you that it must be something because he would have played on at all costs. Diogo looks probably the worst; I didn't see it back but I heard the pictures didn't look great as well, so we have to see there.
"Darwin we took off because he says he feels a little and but that was enough to immediately push the brake and that's what we did, so we took him off and brought Cody [Gakpo] on which worked out really well."
Chelsea, on the other hand, will hope an uninterrupted week at their Cobham training base will aid the recovery of Thiago Silva and Robert Sanchez, who have both been pushing for a return to fitness in recent weeks.