Raheem Sterling and Koulibaly could make their debuts as Chelsea begin their 2022/23 Premier League campaign against Everton on Saturday.
Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel takes his side to Merseyside in Saturday’s evening kick-off and hopes to start the season with a win.
Chelsea will have to end a run of five games without a win at Goodison Park since 2017.
Sterling could help inspire his new team to victory with the England star likely to start in attack alongside Mason Mount and Kai Havertz.
Despite being linked with several stars this summer Sterling is only one of three signings along with Koulibaly and Carney Chukwuemeka.
The former Napoli defender is set to make his debut but there will be a familiar feel amongst the Chelsea line-up with Tuchel’s only real dilemma in midfield.
Mateo Kovacic performed well last season and could start alongside N’Golo Kante, which would mean Jorginho dropping to the bench next to new midfielder Chukwuemeka.
Tuchel also has options in defence but will likely pick the dependable Thiago Silva and captain Cesar Azpilicueta, who has snubbed a move to Barcelona and instead signed a two-year deal.
Head-To-Head-Stats
Everton have won each of their last four Premier League home games against Chelsea.
Chelsea’s run of four consecutive defeats at Everton is their longest active losing streak away to a current Premier League side.
Everton have kept a clean sheet in five of their last nine Premier League meetings with Chelsea (W4 D3 L2).
Everton are unbeaten in their opening Premier League match in the last ten seasons (W4 D6).
Everton have won four of their last six Premier League home games (D1 L1), twice as many as they had in their previous ten games at Goodison Park (W2 D1 L7).
Chelsea have lost just four of their 28 Premier League away games under Thomas Tuchel (W18 D6), with all of these defeats coming by a margin of just one goal. However, one of those losses (and the most recent one) was at Frank Lampard’s Everton in May.
Everton beat Chelsea 1-0 in May, meaning Frank Lampard could become the first manager to win consecutive Premier League games against the Blues having previously managed them in the competition.
The only former Blues boss to win consecutive home Premier League games against them is José Mourinho, doing so in April 2017 and February 2018 with Manchester United.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin has scored in Everton’s opening league match in each of the last two seasons. The last player to do so in three consecutive campaigns for the Toffees was Alan Ball, who did so in 1966-67, 1967-68 and 1968-69.
New Chelsea signing Raheem Sterling is one of 10 players to have scored a hat-trick on the opening weekend of a Premier League campaign, doing so against West Ham in 2019-20. Meanwhile, coming into 2022-23, only Aston Villa (25) have had more different players score on their Premier League debut for them than the Blues (24).