Chelsea next's Premier League game is a big one for local bragging rights.
Ahead of next week's Champions League second leg meeting with Real Madrid, the Blues host west London rivals and relegation-threatened Fulham in an important game at both ends of the Premier League table.
Following last weekend's 1-0 win over West Ham United, Chelsea are in the driver's seat when it comes to sealing a top-four spot.
Currently, three points clear of the Hammers and four ahead of Liverpool, another win in a London derby is essential to ensure Champions League qualification is ensured regardless of what happens against Madrid.
However, Chelsea have suffered a major injury blow ahead of Saturday evening's game with the news that Antonio Rudiger will not be available for selection.
"All the others are available except for Toni Rudiger, who got injured in the last minute of the Madrid game," Blues head coach Thomas Tuchel revealed in his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon. "Everybody else is available.
Rudiger joins midfielder Mateo Kovacic as the two Chelsea absentees, but the pair could return to the squad against Los Blancos.
"No unfortunately, not, he (Kovacic) is still injured," Tuchel added. "He trained with us, but he's still not fully confident, he felt something at the end of training. So he's not available unfortunately.
"Before training today we thought that Kova had a big chance to join us latest for Madrid, maybe even for today.
"So now we have a little setback, not a big one, with him. I don't want to be too negative, let's see how he is tomorrow. For Toni, I'm quite positive for Wednesday."
Since Tuchel's appointment, Rudiger has been a regular in defence which has gone on to keep multiple clean sheets.
But his confirmed absence will leave the German tactician with a simple decision to make.
Judging by Tuchel's team selections when Rudiger has not started under him - it's possible that he thinks Kurt Zouma is the perfect replacement.
If the Chelsea head coach is planning to stick with Thiago Silva and Andreas Christensen as the other central defenders, then the Frenchman can easily slot in on the left-hand side.
Zouma got the nod on when Rudiger was named on the bench against Everton as well as West Brom recently and that might just be a hint as to what Tuchel is thinking in terms of his team selection for the visit of the Cottagers.
Alternatively, captain Cesar Azpilicueta could be pushed back into a central defensive role after operating at right-wing back against West Ham and Real Madrid.
