It’s game week 23 in the Premier League and a teatime trip to take on the Magpies for Frank Lampard’s side, who were 1-0 winners when the two met at Stamford Bridge back in October.

When and where

The match takes place on Saturday 18 January in the 5.30pm evening slot at St James’s Park.

Latest Chelsea team news

N’Golo Kante, Marcos Alonso and Christian Pulisic all missed our win against Burnley last time out. The latter is out for around two weeks, said Lampard on Friday, with the hope he will be back after the February break.

Kante picked up a slight hamstring issue in training last week that was described as ‘hopefully a small thing’, while Alonso hasn’t featured since our big victory at Tottenham.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek has returned to the grass as his rehabilitation from a long-term Achilles injury continues. Lampard had an update on him.

‘He is actually training now with the Under-16s, with the Under-18s, and progression to the under-23s in a pretty short space of time. the sooner he can be back training with us, the better, but we train with a real intensity. When you’ve been out for a long time, it’s very standard you bring him through the Academy years. If he can be training with us after the break, it might still need some competitive games but he might not be far away.’

Latest Newcastle team news

Magpies boss Steve Bruce has committed to taking an in-depth look at the club’s injury crisis as the list of absentees has hit double figures in recent weeks. Dwight Gayle and Paul Dummett were forced off in their draw against Wolves last weekend, missing the midweek FA Cup replay win over Rochdale. They will not be available on Saturday.

Yoshinori Muto, DeAndre Yedlin, Ki-Sung-Yeung and Javi Manquillo are also out. Jack Colback is definitely out with a knee ligament injury, as are Fabian Schar and Jetro Willems.

Allan Saint-Maximin has however been passed fit after a spell on the sidelines.

How to listen live

Chelsea TV will be providing live audio commentary on the 5th Stand app and this website, plus there will also be live text commentary on both those platforms.

How to watch live

The game is being broadcast live on Sky Sports in the UK. Highlights will be available on the 5th Stand app from two hours after full-time, while there will also be a pre-match show live from St James’s Park on the app.

Referee and VAR

Chris Kavanagh is the referee. He has taken charge of two Chelsea games already this season, both victories over Brighton in September and Aston Villa last month. Andy Halliday is the VAR.