Chelsea look to continue unbeaten run in domestic cup competitions as they welcome League One side Plymouth Argyle

With Chelsea now well behind league leaders Manchester City, cup competitions could well evolve into Thomas Tuchel’s main focus, with the German likely to field yet another strong side against lower league opposition.

It is somewhat remarkable to consider that Chelsea are out of the title race despite only losing one Premier League game in their last nine, but draws against Everton, Wolves and two against Brighton & Hove Albion have seen them drop valuable points against so-called ‘lesser sides’.

With Manchester City winning near on week in week out during this period, there has been no reprieve for the Blues, who have failed to kill games off in the way that Champions do. 

As such, with a Carabao Cup Final to look forward to and games in the FA Cup and Champions League to come, the Londoners will still see an opportunity to make this season a great one, with a potential treble still on the cards. 

Their opponents in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup come in the form of League One’s Plymouth Argyle, who have their own goals to be chasing. 

Sitting just three points outside the play-offs, Argyle have shaken off the label of a ‘yo-yo side’ between League One and Two and are rapidly establishing themselves as one of the more exciting sides in the EFL. 

22-year-old Welshman Luke Jephcott has been a revelation for manager Steven Schumacher, scoring 16 league goals last season and accumulating eight so far in the current campaign. Such form will not go unnoticed and Plymouth fans will be keen for them to reap the rewards and gain an unlikely promotion before Premier League and Championship clubs come sniffing around. 

In the previous round, it took an extra-time strike from substitute Ryan Law to take the Greens into the Fourth Round as they dispatched Championship side Birmingham City.

Such results are becoming a habit for Argyle with the win at St Andrew’s the fourth domestic cup win over Championship opposition in the previous two years.

However, it is going to take something rather more remarkable for them to progress this time around, coming up against the European Champions and eight-time FA Cup winners. One would assume that Schumacher will field his strongest 11 for such a game, despite important League One games coming up. 

As for Chelsea, they will be unlikely to give Plymouth any reprieve whatsoever with Tuchel showing no mercy with recent cup selections. For example, in the Third Round against National League Chesterfield, the German fielded one youngster along with a full senior team that included players like Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku. 

As such, the expectation may be that Tuchel goes even stronger in this round, particularly with the way the Premier League results have gone. As if the odds were not already stacked against Plymouth, Chelsea have lost just one game at home all season, that being a narrow 1-0 Premier League loss to, you guessed it, Manchester City. 

Remarkably, the last time these two sides met was in 1989 in Division Two at Home Park. Chelsea ran out 1-0 winners that day, and almost 30 years later, the Blue will be the hot favourites to do so once again. However, it would take a fool to ever rule out the magic of the FA Cup.

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