#team-selection

#team-selection

Our rugby jury answer the key questions ahead of Andy Farrell naming his team to face France

We'll have to wait to see Rehan Ahmed carving it up at the top of the order for England, he has done the job before for Leicestershire, last summer he scored 203 runs at 67.66 a makeshift opener for a few matches when teammate Rishi Patel was out with injury. He's certainly got all the shots, girds loinded for that later on.

We need to retrace the path we took against Inter, adding a few more adjustments. We're facing a strong opponent with a lot of quality, but we need to be careful not to repeat the mistake we made when we conceded against Inter. Milan have important, high-quality players, and they can rotate a lot in midfield and up front. Just like Inter, they can bring on players midway through the match and cause us problems.

Pep Guardiola's side have suffered a real injury crisis of late, particularly at centre-back, and that has been a factor in their falling off the pace in the Premier League title race. City are now six points adrift of league leaders Arsenal at the top. They are without three key central defenders - Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and John Stones - with the trio all ruled out long-term.

Mbappe is reportedly facing up to three weeks on the sidelines with a problematic knee injury, leaving Madrid without their talisman for Thursday's Spanish Super Cup semi-final against Atletico Madrid. Alonso's side will first have to deal with Betis, aiming for a fourth straight league win to cut Barcelona's four-point lead at the top-flight summit. And the Madrid boss hopes his team can use their Club World Cup experience without Mbappe to find a solution once again.

It's too soon for Pedri and Olmo to play the full ninety minutes. There are many matches in the coming weeks and this is a very long season. Olmo needs time; there were options for him to come in, the same with Pedri. They'll be on the bench and might get some playing time, but there are many matches in the coming weeks, in the next month; it's a long road until the end of the season. Perhaps it's too soon for them to play 90 minutes.

One of the benefits of having a healthy roster is that the coach has choices. How he uses that decision making power is another question. At the moment, Hansi Flick is evaluating his players one game at a time, and based on performances, choosing who gets the start. This has been possibly recently, because finally, most of the team is fit and available. The results are starting to roll in, and so far, meritocracy, as manifested through the eyes of the manager, is working.

When he's on the bench, it shows also we have a good team. In this position we have excellent players. What I can say, he's an absolute professional player. His attitude, mentality is great. In the beginning, he had to adapt a little bit, but now he's on his best level.

There were no answers to Chelsea's search for consistency here. Instead there was a late, potentially damaging defeat that leaves them staring down the barrel of a February playoff for the last 16, along with further suggestions they lack what it takes to face down a tough away assignment at this level. Enzo Maresca's side looked well set when Joao Pedro scored against the run of play after 25 minutes.