Venue: Fratton Park
Date: Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Kick-off: 1945 GMT
Right now we’re sitting 3rd in the table behind both United and Arsenal, which pretty much reflects what’s happened to our form of late. Tonight’s game in hand against Portsmouth gives us the chance to make up a bit of the ground we’ve lost although going on our last couple of games, I won’t be holding my breath.
The game also sees Carlo Ancelotti up against a former Chelsea manager who somehow has a Champions League final with us to his credit so bearing in mind he didn’t even get us past the last 16, it won’t help Carlo’s cause if we slip up at Fratton Park.
MANAGERS’ VIEWS
Going into this game, Avram Grant says “Chelsea are a big club with big players, a very good manager and the best owner. It will be a tough game – it’s always difficult when you play Chelsea. But in football anything can happen. Coming to Fratton Park will not be easy for them but we need to give them a lot of respect. We didn’t deserve to lose at Stamford Bridge when we played there earlier in the season. We caused them a lot of problems and had a few chances to score at 1-1. That was one of our best performances of the season, but this is a different game. Everyone knows our situation with the nine-point deduction and everything else that’s happened. But it’s important for us to keep our spirit and play like we did on Saturday. The players have shown a lot of character and shown that we could do a lot more on the pitch if we didn’t have our problems.”
As for Ancelotti, he suggests “I don’t know how many points we need to win the title but I know we have to win on Wednesday. We are behind and have to catch up, but we can still do it. We need to work together, stay compact and the next game against Portsmouth is very important, we can stay close to Manchester United. Pressure was already on us as we needed to win against Blackburn. It is more difficult now, but we have to think about Portsmouth on Wednesday and come back to win.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Pompey, Tal Ben-Haim (groin), John Utaka (groin), Hassan Yebda (knee) and Kevin Prince- Boateng (ankle) miss out through injury whilst Aruna Dindane can’t play because of some money wrangle.
For Chelsea, Essien (knee), Bosingwa (knee), Ashley Cole (ankle), Ivanovic (knee) and Hilario (groin) are absent through injury although Petr Cech could make a return.
TEAMS
PORTSMOUTH (from): James, Mullins, Piquionne, Wilson, Finnan, Webber, Ashdown, Belhadj, Owusu-Abeyie, O’Hara, Hreidarsson, Brown, Diop, Kanu, Basinas, Vanden Borre, Mokoena, Rocha, Smith.
CHELSEA: (from): Cech, Turnbull, Kalou, Alex, Drogba, Malouda, Terry, Carvalho, Borini, Lampard, Obi, Deco, Anelka, Zhirkov, J Cole, Belletti, Ballack, Kakuta, Sturridge, Ferreira.
LAST MEETING
Chelsea 2-1 Portsmouth (16 December 2009)
PREDICTION
Can anyone really predict our games these days? I don’t honestly know so I won’t even try but what I do know is that all the pressure is on us because Pompey literally have nothing to lose.
REFEREE
Lee Mason
Blue is the colour
