Venue: Stamford Bridge
Date: Sunday, 20 November
Kick-off: 1600 GMT
So, 28 games over the past seven seasons – 28 opportunities for today’s opponents to get out theit history and wave it at us, cobwebs and all, and god knows how many controversial decions along the way – little wonder it’s a fixture I anticipate through gritted teeth.
Neither of us in particularly dazzling form going into this one though, King Kenny’s crown is perched as precariously as Liverpool’s position in the top ten and Villas-Boas, having watched us lose 3 times already this season, is already being written out of a job in some areas of the press.
And if you add the ref’s form to the mix, we could all be in for a bit of a game this afternoon.
MANAGERS’ VIEWS
Going into today’s game, Andre Villas-Boas looks to have taken the ‘build them up, take them down’ approach, saying “I’ve always seen them as title contenders because it’s been assumed by them that they would do it. Dalglish has made the necessary changes to Liverpool for them to progress to title contenders this year. He made seven changes to the team, seven coming in, which represents the type of commitment the ownership have to put them back on title-winning ways. They are one of the biggest clubs in England and I always assumed they were challenging for the title.”
King Kenny meanwhile, refusing to discuss his former players and concentrating on the job in hand, says “Different people find different goals to try to achieve what they want but what we want is three points. Our most important thing is to get three points; how we do it and how each individual sets themselves up to do it is up to them. But we will go there and try our best to repeat last year’s result. We beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last season but we have to go there in a different season with a different manager and different players so we can’t assume because we did well last year we will do well this year.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Chelsea, Drogba (arm) and Hilario (flu) are back in contention and Sturridge is expected to make it back from a knock that kept him out of training Friday. So Essien (knee) should be our only absentee.
For Liverpool, Gerrard (ankle) remains out although Carragher (calf) returns for this game and Suarez is expected to keep his place in the starting line-up after being rested for Uruguay’s friendly midweek.
TEAMS
CHELSEA (from): Cech, Bosingwa, Ferreira, Ivanovic, Terry, Cole, Luiz, Mikel, Romeu, Ramires, Lampard, Mata, Malouda, Meireles, McEachran, Torres, Drogba, Kalou, Sturridge, Anelka, Lukaku, Turnbull, Hilario.
LIVERPOOL (from): Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Agger, Enrique, Kuyt, Adam, Lucas, Downing, Suarez, Carroll, Doni, Kelly, Skrtel, Coates, Henderson, Spearing, Rodriguez, Bellamy.
LAST SEASON
PREDICTION
Ok, so we’ve played 28 times over the past seven seasons, winning 12 of them to Liverpool’s 9, but we’ve failed to score in 5 of our last 7 games against them in the league and our frontment aren’t exactly setting the world alight right now, so it isn’t exactly inspiring. Add to that Atkinson’s ability to turn any game on it’s head and anything could happen!
Blue is the colour
