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CHELSEA v Aston Villa: Preview


Venue: Stamford Bridge
Date: Saturday, 27 September
Kick-off: 15:00 GMT

Last week, we lost our 100% winning start but remain unbeaten going into this afternoon’s game at home to a Villa side who’s own unbeaten run was ended against Arsenal last week in three minutes of madness.
To be fair to Villa, they were hit by a stomach bug last weekend and up until then, had had a flying start to the season, putting them third in the table ahead of thus game.
Jose Mourinho hasn’t exactly done a bad job with us though, despite last week’s draw against City, we still sit top of the table with 16 goals from five games so far – a few more today definitely won’t go amiss.

MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into this afternoon’s game, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho says of Villa “They are a difficult opponent, it’s a difficult match, they have many qualities as a team. Last season is last season, this season is this season. They are second with 10 points, it’s a game between the leader and the second position, they have the same points as Southampton. It shows the difficulty of the game and that’s the only thing I’m thinking about.”
Villa boss Paul Lambert meanwhile, says “We we will have our tactics but I will hope our players can carry it out. I watched Chelsea last week against Manchester City and I saw two really good sides. In Man City and Chelsea you have two teams who won’t be far away in both the Champions League and the Premier League. That is the magnitude of the game we’re in. But if someone said to me that we were going to take points from Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea I’d have snapped their hand off.
On any given day you can beat anyone. It’s over the course of the season that people may say 38 games is a big ask. We will go down there and give it a real good go. The times I’ve played against them they’ve always been strong and even now you look at their players and they are a really powerful side. They have a lot of attributes that most sides would love – pace, power, ability. They have everything. That game last Sunday was really good but Chelsea are always a strong side so it’s nothing different. We are in the middle of a tough run of games now but if you say we can take 10 points from eight games I would certainly have taken it that’s for sure.

SQUAD NEWS
For Chelsea, Ramires (groin) is out although Diego Costa should start.
For Villa, Ron Vlaar (calf), Christian Benteke (Achilles) and Libor Kozak (broken leg) are injured although the rest of the Villa squad seem to be over last week’s bug.

TEAMS
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Matic, Fabregas, Hazard, Schurrle, Willian, Costa
VILLA (Possible line-up): Guzan, Hutton, Senderos, Baker, Cissokho, Delph, Cleverley, Westwood, Weimann, Richardson, Agbonlahor

LAST SEASON
Chelsea 2-1 A Villa (21 August 2013)

OTHER STUFF
Chelsea have only lost 1 of their last 12 home games in this fixture
Jose Mourinho has only won one of his last six matches against Villa
Eight of our last nine league goals have been scored in the second half.
Villa are striving to win 3 successive Premier League away games for the first time since April 2010.
Ten points from five games represents their best start since 2009
Villa are the only Premier League team yet to concede an away goal this season.

PREDICTION
Way too close to call

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