Chelsea interim head coach Calum McFarlane faces a final fitness call before Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United at Wembley Stadium on April 26, 2026, after saying two of his key attackers trained on Friday while another is out for the season.
McFarlane confirmed Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer “both trained today and are in a good place,” but added bluntly: “We don’t know yet [whether they can feature on Sunday], but we have another day tomorrow to have a look at them and then make a call on them.” The two attackers will be watched in Saturday’s session before a selection is made for the 15.00 BST (10 a.m. EDT) kick-off.
The squad’s injury news is otherwise bleak. McFarlane told reporters flatly, “Estevao unfortunately won’t play for us this season,” confirming the hamstring problem that forced Estevao Willian off against Manchester United will keep him out for the remainder of the campaign.
The numbers underline why the fitness calls matter. Chelsea have lost seven of their last eight matches in all competitions; they have not scored since Enzo Fernández’s equaliser in Paris — a drought that stretches back 45 days and 400 minutes of football. By contrast, Leeds arrive unbeaten in seven matches and secure their place at Wembley after beating West Ham on penalties to reach the semi-final.
Chelsea’s run to the semis has not yet required them to beat Premier League opposition, and that sequence — combined with the club’s recent form and a midweek managerial change following a 3-0 defeat at Brighton that led to Liam Rosenior’s dismissal — frames a low-confidence run into one of English football’s showpiece days.
Those facts collide at Wembley where history offers one tidy reminder. Chelsea defeated Leeds in 1970 to lift the FA Cup for the first time in the club’s history, a single moment that will sit in the memory of both sets of supporters as the sides meet again on neutral ground.
McFarlane’s Friday comments sketched the limits of certainty and the tight window for decisions. “But we hope so [they can be involved], but it’s important we give them time,” he said, acknowledging the gamble of risking players with fitness doubts in a one-off match that could define the remainder of Chelsea’s season.
The tension in this tie is straightforward: a club that has not scored in more than a month, and that has lost the vast majority of recent matches, faces an opponent on an unbeaten run and carrying the momentum of a penalty-shootout victory into Wembley. That mismatch on paper is tempered by Chelsea’s route to the semi-final and the simple fact of knockout football, where form can be bent by one selection, one moment, one shot.
For anyone looking for a chelsea vs leeds prediction, the immediate answer hinges on McFarlane’s Saturday call. If Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer are passed fit and start, Chelsea at least have the attacking options to force Leeds into mistakes. If they are withheld, Chelsea enter the match with a stretched attacking line-up and a longer list of questions than answers.
McFarlane has framed the decision as clinical and imminent: “We don’t know yet [whether they can feature on Sunday], but we have another day tomorrow to have a look at them and then make a call on them.” That choice — whether to push two recovering forwards into a one-off semi-final — is the single decision that will most clearly determine whether Chelsea’s troubled season gains a reprieve at Wembley or ends with another symptom of a campaign gone off course.
