'Left out' - Jason Steele absence explained for Brighton at Chelsea

Brighton and Hove Albion goalkeeper Jason Steele is absent for their Premier League clash at Chelsea. Steele, 32, has been excellent for the Seagulls for the last two months as he wrestled away the No1 spot from Rob Sanchez.

The former Sunderland man has featured in the Premier League for the past six games and last week Albion head coach Roberto De Zerbi described him as one of the best in Europe in terms of his distribution from the back.

De Zerbi however has always been keen to stress that Sanchez, who has made a few mistakes this season, remains very much part of his plans. Indeed the Italian confirmed last week that Sanchez will be in goal for the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United at Wembley next weekend.

Steele was in goal last week for the 2-1 loss at Tottenham and played very well despite the defeat. It seems though that he picked up an injury which ruled him out of the clash at Stamford Bridge.

De Zerbi said yesterday in the pre-match press conference that a couple of his players are managing injuries and late calls will have to be made – Steele was clearly one of those. The nature of the injury has not been confirmed but it has been described as an unspecified slight injury and that he was left out of the Chelsea match as a precaution.

Elsewhere for Brighton, Moises Caicedo starts against the team that tried to sign him in January. Evan Ferguson began the game up-front, while Levi Colwill was ineligible to play against his parent club and was replaced by Adam Webster.

Trevor Chalobah came into Chelsea’s defence for the game against Brighton at Stamford Bridge, with Kalidou Koulibaly ruled out for several weeks with a hamstring injury.

Benoit Badiashile was also included after being ineligible for the Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.

Reece James, Joao Felix and Mateo Kovacic dropped to the bench with Christian Pulisic, Mykhailo Mudryk, Conor Gallagher and Denis Zakaria all coming into the side.