Premier League - Chelsea vs Aston Villa

The match was originally scheduled to take place on Saturday the 31st, but, due to Chelsea's involvement in the UEFA Super Cup against Bayern Munich the day preceding that, the Premier League moved it forward 10 days.










The corresponding fixture last season produced a humiliating 8-0 annihilation by the hosts against a Villa side that looked all but doomed.


Remarkably however, Paul Lambert's men conjured up a late rally and evaded relegation in the end by a relatively comfortable 5 points, thus securing Premier League status for one of England's biggest clubs.










Both sides recorded opening day victories in their respective Matchday 1 fixtures - Villa with a hugely impressive 3-1 win away against Arsenal at the Emirates, Chelsea with a conservative 2-0 victory over Premier League newcomers Hull City in José Mourinho's Stamford Bridge homecoming.










Chelsea, expectedly, are firm favourites with the bookies, though with Villa's impressive victory over Arsenal in their own backyard on Saturday, albeit with the help of a boatload of injuries to the home side both before and during the game as well as a number of questionable calls in favour of Paul Lambert's men, coupled with Chelsea's struggles against Villa in recent years, José Mourinho will certainly not be taking this match lightly in the slightest.










Villa will likely play a much-unchanged side from the one that triumphed over Arsenal at the weekend, while Chelsea will probably switch up a few personnel; Blues manager José Mourinho himself stated after Sunday's victory over Hull that many of his players were still feeling some effects of the international fixtures mid-week, which likely accounted for the meteoric decrease in intensity after an initial flying first half-hour or so. Juan Mata and David Luiz may also make a return to the side after both were kept out due to differing levels of deficient fitness.

The match may also feature two of the most exciting and promising young strikers in world football, who also happen to be teammates - and rivals - in Belgium's centre-forward position in Christian Benteke and Romelu Lukaku. The former started off the season on a flyer, slotting home 2 penalties in Villa's win over Arsenal on Saturday, while Lukaku will be eager to show what he can do should José Mourinho give him a start.

This would be a better test for our defense obviously. We had a hard time dealing with Benteke the last time we played against them. I wasn't particularly impressed with out defense against Hull

Yes, this will be a much sterner test before the real big one against United next week. Eager to see how Jose sets things up and how we fare.

Another match we should win, I hope to see Lukaku, Mata and maybe DL4 start.

Same. Hopefully the Special Juan is back by then and Mou will start Kraken.

Not sure if anybody else watched the game against Arsenal but I have alot of mates that support Arsenal/Villa so I ende dup watching it.

I can tell you that despite coming out 3-1 winners Villa are woeful, outside of Benteke and maybe Guzan there is not really a quality player on their team. When you're starting Delph at CM you know you have issues and to me they are going to be in a similar position to last year. Only thing that we'll get tested with is Benteke against our backline imo, last time he made Cahill look silly but we ended up winning 2-1.

Arsenal played pretty badly tbh.. if we play a disciplined game( specially Luiz against Benteke) we should deal with the game easily

Arsenal

Shed the king of threads

Blue Barrett wrote:Shed the king of threads

Yes, this was another stellar showing by me, wasn't it?


Think it's fair to say I'm back to my matchday thread-making best

Spoiler:

David Luiz remains out:
Jose Mourinho has ruled David Luiz out of Wednesday evening's game against Aston Villa but anticipates the Brazilian could return from injury next week
http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3419183/title/newsflash-david-luiz-remains-out

Shame really, we do need him back.

via WhoScored: Frank Lampard has scored 8 goals in his last 6 games against Aston Villa

Hurlee-Mata-Hazard and no Torres please

Any line up without Torres is quite good tbh lol

2 hours more...   coffeeeee!

Hazard, Oscar and Mata all start along with Demba Ba up front, Gigi confirms on MNL.


Rest of the tean news out shortly.

TEAM NEWS: Cech, Ivanovic, Cole, Terry, Cahill, Lampard, Ramires, Hazard, Oscar, Mata, Ba

SUBS: Schwarzer, Mikel, De Bruyne, Azpilicueta, Schurrle, MvG, Lukaku

VILLA XI: Guzan; Lowton, Vlaar, Clark, Luna; El Ahmadi, Westwood, Delph; Agbonlahor, Benteke, Weimann

So I had to change my prediction..

Hull - Torres Villa - Ba Utd - Lukaku ?

 

iNFINITY9910 wrote:Hull - Torres Villa - Ba Utd - Lukaku ?

 

Let's hope so...

1-0 Win for Chelsea.Defender to score or Ramires.

What r u guys upto btw? I'm watching Hockey..  Cos its almost midnight and because our cable TV provider takes channels from India, all the sports channels are CRICKET! and most of them are either Ashes or Indian cricket team winning something..  I'm happy to watch Poland against Netherlands!!!! 45 mins more..