Last season we split 6 points, taking 3 a piece with Chelsea also having 2 red cards in our home win; England man of the hour Fabien Delph getting the winner. It is now the chosen ones second season of his returning reign and what a difference a summer, and £91.3 million makes.
| P | W | D | L | GD | PTS | ||
| 1 | Chelsea | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | +9 | 13 |
| 3 | Villa | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
It is clear to see that Chelsea are not lacking goals this season with a huge 16 being scored in 5 games, that is 3.2 goals per game; 7 of which are from Diego Costa, the current Premier League top scorer (closely followed by Leicester’s Ulloa with 5).
Our games do not tend to lack goals. The past 6 meetings alone have seen 25 being scored collectively and a ratio seeing Chelsea win 67% compared to our 33%. There wasn’t any draws during that period. Now onto the present.
This could well be the season Chelsea take the title, having easily brushed away the majority who have faced them so far. But they are not an invincible club and have so far relied heavily upon the scoring abilities of Costa.
Ivanovic
Chelsea are a great team, there is no denying it, they pull together as a team and most importantly they can score, and not just the strikers. Branislav Ivanovic is no stranger to scoring for the blues having already scored 2 goals this season and averaging 2.2 shots per game, making him second top scorer for Chelsea. He has a habit of finding space and converting from free kicks and corners meaning that he will give trouble the defence. It’s not just the his aerial abilities, he also has a keen eye for an accurate ball which sees him with a 79.8% completion rate this season and an average of 44.6 passes per game. He needs to be stopped, and will offer some decent battles in midfield as he likes to press forward, spending a lot of time near the half way line. Delph and Richardson (who I hope gets dropped for Grealish) will have a hard time here and will need to be at there best in order to stop the passes through to Cesc Fàbregas and runs along this wing.
Fàbregas
Outside of Costa, Cesc has easily been Chelsea’s top player and having only scored in the Champions league so far this season, he is due a premier league goal and will no doubt come looking for it. The ball will continue to be fed through to Fàbregas and he will attempt to set up, or convert himself; this isn’t to be taken lightly. The Spaniard has already assisted 6 of the goals, and I have no doubt that he will play a key role for Chelsea this weekend, but Lambert will already know this and I can expect to see him man marked heavily in order to squash his creativity. He has been avergagin 72 passes a game with a competition of 89.4%. However, he is not a completely all rounded player though, what he offers in offence and passing, he lacks in defensive play; pressured enough, we can see him giving away fouls. This should be taken advantage of with players like Delph taking him on.
Costa
I feel that Costa’s legacy speaks for itself, he is dangerous and accurate. He can pass the ball well, he can read the game and he can score. I don’t need to go into too much depth on his abilities as it speaks for itself, so instead, lets look at his weaknesses. Diego Costa can be wound up, which I am sure Senderos will already be well aware of. He has managed to get himself 3 yellow cards in 5 games already, but the fuel only seems to ignite the flames as the scoring record shows. He will be a hard player to stop and Senderos needs to be careful as the ref will be informed on his antics against Ballotelli. We do not want to see a repeat of this dangerous football as risks like this not only affect the individual with red cards but it completely knocks the team, we can not afford this!
It’s a genuine daunting task attempting to write a preview and analyse Chelsea because each and every player is great in ability and has the potential to score against us on the weekend so I have narrowed it down to the above 3 players that I fear will create the most chaos in their areas.
Like touched upon earlier, Chelsea do have weaknesses that can be exploited evidently in defence and their choice of keeper , 22 year old Courtious who have played their parts in conceding 7 goals. It just so happens that they tend to deliver double that amount at the opposite end.
Man City put a stop to Costa on Sunday and forced him to concede his 3rd yellow card; we need to do the same. I can see there being a lot of yellow cards, predominantly on the Chelsea team sheet.
Outside of a leaky defence, we also have midweek games going in our favour as Chelsea played Bolton at home, have Sporting CP away midweek followed by Arsenal at home. I can see them fielding a slightly weaker side against us with the eyes on the following 2 games.
Injuries (list updated as news appears)
Benteke (Expect to see return for Man City)
Vlaar
Ramires
STAFF GAME PREDICTIONS
Mr_Cheese
I think the game will be a tough shocker but we play better on the road so I am going to predict 2-2 with a red card for Chelsea.
Oohaghpaulmcgrath
I’m going 3.1 to Chelsea
Badger
Blimey, it’s a tough one.
My head says that they will have too much for us, with their current free scoring.
But we have a fairly good record against them recently and should have drawn last season.
If they come at us, they’ll be playing our game, so you never know, hence my heart says a draw, 2-2.
Going back to reality, I suspect a 1-3 loss is probably more realistic.
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As always, keep the faith and UTV.
I am sorry to be negative lads, but feel this might be our wake up call….. I think Chelsea will put a few past us…. 4-0 Chelsea
Hey, hard times ahead, so it is right to expect the worst but we still have to aim for the highest. Before this run of games, I expected a maximum of 4 points, we already have 3. I don’t mind losing, so long as we go down fighting, and this week, I think we will put a fight up.
Interesting article Mr_Cheese; just glad you didn’t completely depress us all by running through the rest of Chelsea’s world class line up 🙂 This should be an easy game to call – a win for Chelsea particulalry given our showing last Saturday (albeit we were hampered by illness) and a sort of lurking fear that the great start to the season is built on sand!
I actually think thsi is a difficult one to predict becasue Villa (if you ignore the odd thrashing LOL) have a reasonable record at the Bridge and ‘the chosen one’ has a poor record against the Villa (I think one of the worst gainst any EPL side). No doubt you will be able to provide the stats on that point.
Anyway, rambling over and I’m going for a draw 2-2 with all my fingers etc., etc. crossed. UTV
You’re right in saying Chelsea could have one eye on next weeks big games but even with them fielding a weaker squad, i’d still expect them to hammer us this season.
They’re immensely talented in all areas. They’ll sit a lil deeper knowing we’ll try to use Gabby on the break and completely shut us out, and if the fullbacks do press high, Matic/Mikel will always be there to cover. I can’t see us passing our way around them.
2-0 at best I think. Anything better is a bonus, perhaps 30yd screamer!!!!
At school we used to play football and pick teams by having two captains taking alternate picks from the other kids all the way down to the useless ones. If you did that with Villa and Chelsea 24 man squads all the Chelsea players would be picked before any Villa ones. Benteke, if fit, would be the exception.
It looks like a dead cert loss, and it’s just a question of whether it’s a game defeat or a mauling.
4-0 Chelsea for me, though I’m concerned it could be worse.
No point in turning up then!
While that’s true, and we had the same thing, players were usually picked on if they were liked/friends etc and maybe, big maybe, on talent. They weren’t picked based on strengths, weaknesses, styles, positions. Which is why most of these “captains” don’t go into the sport professionally, be it playing, managing, agent, etc.
Although I agree we’ll probably lose, at least we’ll have mostly everyone back from illness. Unfortunately Vlaar still seems out.
We could get something from this game if we take the attack to them. We won’t of course and it could disintegrate 4-0 or 4-1. Should we decide to sit back we have to leave 2 players up not just 1 and that is exactly where I think we will fail – with Gabby stuck up-field on his own.
I do not see Chelsea getting a red card at home unless the ref hands out a pair.
I will be there so I will report on the atmosphere. My friend said “you are over 65 aren’t you?” I agreed. “Good” he said “I have got you a Pensioner’s ticket” . £20 instead of £55 seems a bargain but I wonder if I have to wear a red coat and medals.
OLL, there is no way we will attack them.
Come to think of it, when did we last really attack anyone, Lambert’s comments apart?
I didn’t see the Pool game and probably won’t see this one, but I’ll bet we approach it in the same way.
Try a bit, and then, whoever gets the first goal goal, sit back, hoping it’ll be 1-0 either way unless we can hit them on the counter.
It’s what Lambert does and is mostly why I don’t like him.
His football is garbage and no better than he who shall not be named, imo.
yes sorry guys my post was a bit negative. I’m usually a bit more positive but I just can’t see us even trying to do anything other than avoid a heavy defeat. They are quite negative for such a talented team and they will make sure they don’t over commit and leave themselves open to the counter attack which is our only tactic. They are just too clever all round. Then there’s Diego Costa vs Baker or Clark…oops! I can’t even bring myself to name their other talents. All that and they still have John Terry who has a “free handball” pass that he gets to play in most games instead of the ref giving a penalty.
Hope I am spectacularly wrong.
We really need Vlaar for this game. If he isnt playing, we wont be able to keep Chelsea out. If they score early, I fear for us!
As much as I want Grealish to start, Lambert may not feel this to be the right game to do it in. Be nice if we could give Chelsea something to think about at the back, but i doubt we will.
But they no longer have our arch nemesis (score at will against the Villa) Lampard playing. This will be their undoing 🙂
Instead they have, Cesc ‘Come on injured to notch a couple then go off’ Fabregas
Off topic; did you see the article about how ill Helenius was last season which explained his no show and season long loan back to Denmark. Puts football into perspective.
Yes. Sounds nasty. Hopefully has fully recovered and who knows, maybe will see him back at Villa next season.
That Jan Vertonghen incident could have got very messy.
DS – hope so as I’d like to see what he could do given a run in the team. Must make an effort to follow his fortunes back at his Danish club (can’t spell the name but it sounds like a good malt whisky LOL)
Chelskivovapopovski to smash us
one of the tougher games in our season, can’t help feeling like oohahahaha on this game, even with a full squad 2 pick from it was always gonna be difficult 1, can’t see were villa can cause chelsea trouble, but chelsea seem 2 be more attacking than normal which means its gonna be a stroll for chelsea.
3 nil chelsea
Here we go again!
The game is being played well, we are still defending heavily but the attacking is more promising and much more of it. Hutton seems to be playing very well again and Richardson is working hard to get the ball back. I know it is 1 nil down, but I like what I see.
Our worst performance so far. Gabby’s back to normal, Weimann just runs around, Westwood back to poor distribution and Hutton’s our best player.
Tbh tho, I’d take this score!!
It wasn’t a bad performance. Our is issue is going forward, we have no attack and when players are constantly ruining the crosses from set pieces, what chance are we giving ourselves? Every set piece was disgusting. We need to spend more on our attacking options.
—EDIT—
Bringing Bent on in a double sub and he only touched the ball 3 times. Nobody looked brave enough going forward, there was no ambition and it looked like everybody was trying to pass the ball to somebody else so they didn’t look bad if they miss passed/ crossed. If we they want to learn the hard way, they are going to get the message.
Ya we never looked like scoring today and no where near getting some points. I don’t feel though that we played all to badly. Baker outfoxed for costa’s goal but the other 2 were just the statistical brutality of have so much possession and the volume of attacks coming our way. Also the sharpness and quality of chelseas squad. Its hard to see any weaknesses in this chelsea team, Terry maybe for pace at the back but he makes up for that in other areas.
but my god, Costa, being serviced by Hazard, Fabregas, Willian (who was excellent) and oscar! with schurle and Remy as back up! thats incredible strenght in depth.
Look just outclassed today Chelsea look so strong this year its scary.
There wasn’t any panic in the team at least, the organisation was very good.
Hutton played well, Delph and Cleverly played well with little possession they had.
We lacked the will to impose ourselves on it but maybe we are still way way too far from trying that type of game at chelsea away.
Man city next …. *big exhale*
You can NOT keep having around 25-30% posession per game and 1 to 2 shots on target per game and expect to win.
Thats how its been since the 2nd half of the Hull game.
Far too defensive.
I had to laugh or would have cried, Bent came on and shocked Steve Claridge and the BBC sports commentator he said is that Bent ? he’s put weight on ,from the last time I’ve seen him,Claridge said I’d best not comment. Well two down and two to go, from all account’s had a couple of chances, better tell Abonglahor what a cross bar and goal posts are he’s missing chances again. I can only go on what I heard on radio so not clear of that comment. Cheer up lads its only a game. Fuck it where’s that whisky?……
you cant keep aving around 25% 30% posession lmao not many teams will visit stamford bridge and take the ball away from the blues, better sides than us will struggle with that. ppl get all obsessed on possession lol its wot teams do when they av the ball, when we play teams in our skill lvls, we will av enough of the ball to score.
i am happy with the outcome, we could av gone forwards more or kept more of the BALL more. but the result or scoreline wasn’t ever in doubt. it could av been a hell of alot worse. so bring on city next and then more winnable matches, lick our wounds and get ready for them
the summer is over back to normal for villa fans,we fluked against stoke scraped by against newcastle 1 good half v hull shows how poor lpool are aresnal played for 3 mins and ten seconds and passed the ball more times than any other team last 2 years,never laid a glove on chelsea,people on here thinking benteke going to come back and solve all,came back last year much to quick took him 10 matches to get going,kozack broke his leg taking 10 months to get back seem to remember other players coming back in 3,showing nowwhy nobody came in for vlar our site owner probarly not far wrong about him,okore where has he gone,cole what is the point,then we give lambert gabby hutton new contracts i dont drink but when read this back nearly try it
breathe jvillian
hey and other than that alls good
Has somebody pissed Oohah off? he’s gone AWOL, Oohah what’s your take on the game mate,
well i aven’t the foggiest where hes gone 2 but iam sure he’ll pop on to trash the villa.
p.s i can’t say iam missing him i am sworn to tell the truth
I disagree, I thought we were terrible, lack lustre going forward. We had absolutely no idea once we got into the final 3rd. Chelsea never got out of 1st gear. Wasn’t Cole bought in for creativity because that is STILL what we’re missing
iam sure had villa had the chelsea team players and chelsea had the villa players both teams would av approached the game differently. mourinho has parked many busses in his time. look the villa management thought playing this way, was our only chance to get sumat from game ~ oh unless you thought we could outplay them or out score um
cole isn’t fully fit has pick up a knee injury and isn’t ready why do we look 2 players not picked bring on bent we hear all the time, hes a waste of space, he came on he made absolutely no contribution, i wasn’t meaning efforts on goal i am looking for just plain effort he has had his day,