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Blackpool vs CHELSEA: Preview

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Venue: Bloomfield Road

Date: Monday, 7 March

Kick-off: 2000 GMT

On top of our win against United Tuesday night, the weekend’s results have done us a huge favour and tonight’s game against Blackpool could see us capitalise a bit more on that.

We’re not at our best away though and Blackpool aren’t shy of taking scalps, having just beaten Spurs as well as a double over Liverpool under their belt this season, so it certainly won’t be the stroll we had against them back in September.

MANAGERS’ VIEWS

Blackpool manager Ian Holloway is never backwards at coming forwards and ahead of tonight’s game, says “Player for player, Chelsea are much better than us. So for a manager it becomes a case of “how can we beat them?” and call me stupid but I love a challenge like that. I anticipate them having the ball more than us, so we need to be patient and, when we do get it, hurt them on the break. That is unusual coming from a manager whose team is at home but it is the only way.

What I won’t do – refuse to do – is sit back and try for a draw. That is the main thing we have added to the Premier League this year: we try to get three points. It’s made it the most exciting season in years and we deserve a bit of credit for that. I’m not saying we are totally gung-ho. You have to try to get the balance between attack and defence right. Even a well-organised unit that has been working together for months might not be good enough to stop Didier Drogba, so let’s try to hurt them the other way.”

As for Carlo Ancelotti, the Chelsea manager definitely won’t be taking a result against Blackpool for granted, stating “It’s an important game, a difficult game because Blackpool have had fantastic performances at home. They beat Tottenham in their last home game, and were 2-0 up against United. It’s a team who like to play football with intensity and a good pace, attacking football. It will not be an easy game, but our moment’s good now. We want to maintain continuity in the results.”

SQUAD NEWS

For Blackpool, Clarke, Gilks, Rachubka (all knee), Taylor-Fletcher (hamstring), Basham and Sbai (both fitness) all miss out, with Crainey (ankle) and Grandin (hamstring) given as doubtful. Charlie Adams and DJ Campbell miss out through suspension.

For us, Alex (knee) and Benayoun (Achilles) are both injured, whilst David Luiz (hamstring) and John Obi Mikel (knee) are doubts.

TEAMS

BLACKPOOL: (from): Kingson, Crainey, Southern, Eardley, Cathcart, Evatt, Phillips, Vaughan, Varney, Sylvestre, Beattie, Reid, Puncheon, Ormerod, Baptiste, Carney, Halstead, Kornilenko.

CHELSEA (from): Cech, Bosingwa, Ferreira, Terry, Luiz, Ivanovic, Zhirkov, Cole, Mikel, Essien, Lampard, Ramires, McEachran, Kalou, Malouda, Anelka, Torres, Drogba, Turnbull.

REFEREE

Mike Dean

LAST MEETING

Chelsea 4-0 Blackpool (19 September 2010)

PREDICTION

The good news is we’ve won on our last six visits to Bloomfield Road in all competitions but the bad news is that this season, we’ve won just two of our last nine league games away from Stamford Bridge.

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