Hughes and Cisse set to start

Portsmouth midfielders Richard Hughes and Aliou Cisse are in line for rare starts with Lomana LuaLua and Amdy Faye suspended for the visit to runaway leaders Chelsea.

Hamstring injuries rule out Steve Stone and Andy Griffin as well while Gary O’Neil faces a late test on an ankle injury sustained against Blackburn last week.

After the £2.1m (€3m) sale of Nigel Quashie to Southampton, one of two youngsters, Richard Duffy and Valery Mezague, is likely to be on the Pompey substitutes’ bench.

Provisional squad: Hislop; Primus, de Zeeuw, Stefanovic, Taylor, Unsworth, Cisse, O’Neil, Berger, Hughes, Harper, Duffy, Kamara, Yakubu, Fuller, Mezague, Berkovic, Curtis, Ashdown (gk).