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CHELSEA vs Birmingham: Preview

Venue: Stamford Bridge

Date: Wednesday, 28 January

Kick-off: 1945 GMT

 

Right, we got ourselves comfortably through to the fifth round of the FA Cup with a 2-0 win over Preston at the weekend, now it’s back to the job in hand – getting some points back in the Premier League. Tonight won’t be easy against an in-form Birmingham side though, so despite our solid performance on Saturday, we’ll need to step up a gear for this one.

 

SQUAD NEWS

CHELSEA

Michael Essien and Jose Bosingwa remain out long term and are now joined for the next month by Juliano Belletti (knee). Drogba, Kalou and Mikel remain away. However, Frank Lampard should be fit and Ricardo Carvalho, Petr Cech, Joe Cole and Ashley Cole should all start.

BIRMINGHAM

For Birmingham, Carsley, Murphy, Tainio, O’Connor, Parnaby and Phillips all remain injured. McLeish should however name an unchanged side for the tenth league game in succession.

 

TEAMS

CHELSEA (from): Cech, Hilario, Turnbull, Ivanovic, Carvalho, Terry, A Cole, Ballack, Deco, Lampard, J Cole, Malouda, Anelka, Sturridge, Borini, Ferreira, Bruma, Alex, Zhirkov, Kakuta

BIRMINGHAM (from): Hart, Carr, R Johnson, Dann, Ridgewell, Larsson, Ferguson, Bowyer, Fahey, McFadden, Benitez, Jerome, Maik Taylor, McSheffrey, Jervis, Michel, Queudrue, D Johnson, Vignal

 

LAST MEETING

Birmingham 0-0 Chelsea (December 26th 2009)

 

PREDICTION

Well, we know we have the best home record in the league with 31 out of 33 points available but Birmingham are unbeaten in 12 and in their last five away, so this could be a struggle. And whilst you could counter that with the fact that Birmingham haven’t beaten us in any of our last 16 meetings but seeing as they’re the only team to have stopped us scoring this season – indeed, ending a run of scoring in 34 consecutive games – the probability of a draw is a little too likely.

 

REFEREE

Steve Bennett

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