We have to manage the squad, to play these two games in such a short space of time. The FA Cup is a massive competition and we're playing against a top side so everything has to be good.
12.08 Teams are out warming up at the Bridge. Can confirm that the weather in west London is pretty much as per for the last few weeks. Cold. But there's enough sun for the Italian and Spanish tourists to be wearing sunglasses.
12.05 ITV anchor Adrian Chiles has impeccable taste in newspapers. Here he is enjoying today's Daily Telegraph at Stamford Bridge:
12.02 The ITV coverage begins and it's a Chelsea-tastic montage to kick off. They've done well in the Cup over recent years, is the gist.
Rooney out of Chelsea tie with groin injury, so he'll 'need games' by the time the derby comes around next Monday. Strange season for him..
11.49 Well, well, well. What do we make of this selection from Sir Alex? On Saturday he was spinning claiming that the only thing preventing him from picking Rooney was his fatigue following a late-night flight back from Montenegro in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. But that's hardly an excuse he can deploy this morning...Especially when they're 15 points clear the top of the Premier League.
11.40 TEAM NEWS: The first team-sheet has dropped and Fernando "The Mask Of" Torres is the high-profile casualty from the Chelsea starting line-up. But the biggest news, perhaps, is that Wayne Rooney is nowhere to be seen in the Manchester United squad, despite being rested for the Sunderland game.
Chelsea: Cech, Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Luiz, Cole, Ramires, Mikel, Hazard, Oscar, Mata, Ba.Subs: Turnbull, Lampard, Torres, Moses, Terry, Benayoun, Bertrand.
Man Utd: De Gea, Jones, Smalling, Ferdinand, Evra, Valencia, Carrick, Cleverley, Nani, Welbeck, Hernandez.Subs: Lindegaard, Giggs, Young, van Persie, Powell, Kagawa, Vermijl.
11.30 Matches between these two teams do not require any hyping up, but Sir Alex can't help himself and used his pre-match press conference to light the blue-touch paper. Fergie has claimed that Chelsea's recent FA Cup success – four titles from the last six competitions – is purely down to the luck of the draw. Check these quotes out:
Chelsea have [got a good record], but we try to win it every year. But over the last few seasons, we've had some very difficult draws. I think Chelsea have enjoyed the benefit of home draws over the past few years, though, and I don't think they have had one hard game in their run to semi-finals over the years. And that helps, there is no doubt about that, but they have us to play at Stamford Bridge and that won't be easy.
11.25 Good morning and thanks for joining me for live coverage of this very welcome slice of Easter Monday FA Cup pie. The fixture list gods have favoured us today, so instead of fruitlessly flicking through those movie channels (that you really must cancel one of these days), we've got a humdinger of an FA Cup tie between two of the biggest names in Budweiser's famous football competition.
You think you've had a difficult weekend – it's not exercise when you move from the kitchen table to the sofa – but these two squads played a flippin' Premier League game on Saturday, leaving them with just one day of rest (and they probably trained). But after some canny squad rotation on Saturday – rather more successful from United's perspective – Rafael BenÃtez and Sir Alex Ferguson have succeeded in getting two teams together so we can collectively finish off the wine and see out the long weekend with some glorious football.
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