Venue: Stamford Bridge
Date: Saturday, 20 August
Kick-off: 1730 BST
So. Andre Villas-Boas takes charge of his first game at Stamford Bridge in the late kick-off against West Brom today with their former manager Roberto di Matteo at his side. Will we get a 6-0 again though? Given Unitedgot a more marginal win over them last weekend I won’t be getting too excited.
MANAGERS’ VIEWS
Going into his first home game, AVB says “It’s a home game, it’s a game where we expect to have the initiative. But we are happy enough that West Brom favours a football initiative and a football philosophy. They showed that last week against Man United I think Roy’s principles and values of football are surely taken into account. It’s one of the reasons why he took Fulham to the Europa League final and that’s why his Liverpool team – although it couldn’t find the results – played fantastic football.”
Fulham manager Roy Hodgson, on the other hand, seems to be focussed on one player inparticular ahead of the game, saying of Fernando Torres “I caught him as a player at the time with quite serious injury problems. His wife was having a baby, so it was an important time in his life. If you take that short period of time we worked together, there were a lot of things going on in his life which had little to do with football and which I couldn’t control. But I never doubted him as a person or doubted him as a player. It was bold of Chelsea to pay a big transfer fee for him when the consensus was he wasn’t at his best. But I always believed it was a move which would pay dividends. He is a top quality player and I fear I shall see that at close hand on Saturday. I can only hope he takes pity on me and has a bad game out of sympathy.”
SQUAD NEWS
The bad news for us is that Petr Cech (knee) will be out for up to a month, so it’ll be either Hilario or Turnball deputising between the sticks. Michael Essien(knee) and David Luiz (thigh) remain out and Daniel Sturridge is still suspended. New signing Romelu Lukaku could make his debut though.
For West Brom, Jerome Thomas (hip/thigh) misses out and Peter Odemwingie (ankle) is a doubt. Right-back Steven Reid (leg) and central defender Gareth McAuley, who has been struggling with illness, are both fit.
TEAMS
CHELSEA (from): Hilario, Ivanovic, Bosingwa, Ferreira, Terry, Alex, Cole, Bertrand, Mikel, McEachran, Lampard, Ramires, Benayoun, Malouda, Torres, Drogba, Anelka, Kalou, Lukaku, Turnbull.
WEST BROM (from): Foster, Fulop, Reid, Tamas, Olsson, Shorey, Scharner, Brunt, Mulumbu, Morrison, Odemwingie, Long, Cech, Tchoyl, Ibanez, Thorne, Thomas, Dorrans, Jara, McAuley, Fortune, Bednar.
LAST MEETING
Chelsea 3-1 West Brom (16 April 2011)
PREDICTION
Chelsea won the corresponding fixture 6-0 on the opening day last season. In fact, we’ve won all 10 meetings in the Premier League, scoring 29 goals and Didier Drogba has managed 8 in 7 of those games whilst West Brom have failed in 7 of our games. Not since we were relegated in 1978 and West Brom finished third have they beaten us at Stamford Bridge. Let’s hope we avoid a repeat eh? 🙂
Blue is the colour
