Date: Sunday 16th
October 2022
Venue: Villa Park
Kick-off: 14:00 BST
It’s been a
decent run of games for Graham Potter, after a late win against Crystal Palace,
a more convincing win against Wolves last weekend sandwiched between wins home
and away against AC Milan and today, it’s a trip to Villa Park to face 16th
place Aston Villa.
We started the
weekend fouth in the table and as well as being a lot easier on the eye of late,
we’ve also managed 3 clean sheets on the bounce but as the wins have started to
mount up, so are the injuries. There’s almost an inevitability about Italian
sides and injuries to key players for us and this time it’s Reece James, with a
knee injury, which will impact on us as it always does.
As for Villa,
well they’re a lot tougher on the eye although they do come into today’s game
on a four-game unbeaten run – one of those coming against Manchester City, so I
wouldn’t expect this to be a walkover by any stretch of the imagination. Villa
aren’t conceding many and they’ll want to test us to get whatever they can out
of this one.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into today’s game, Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard, says “It’s a big moment
for English and British managers for Graham to get that opportunity [at
Chelsea]. He’s had to go through periods of trauma, learning periods where it’s
been tough, but he fronted it, he’s come through that, he was given the time to
do that. He’s proven there are good
coaches out there and that’s what I want to prove here. I want to prove that I
can move this team up the league. I want to prove we can compete in the top
half of the league and that’s the challenge that faces us right now. Credit to
Graham, we wish him well outside of the Villa fixtures and we’ll see how he
does. That does bring different pressure when you come to places. With
Brighton, with all due respect, it’s different when you come to Chelsea because
they want to be competing at the top of the league, competing in the Champions
League and they should be coming to Villa Park and wiping the floor with us if
we’re talking about spending and the backing.
The pressure is just as
much on them as it is for us. It’s game on, we’re looking forward to it. They’ve recruited extremely well. They’ve changed
manager of late and seem to be in a honeymoon period. Everything points
to them being favourites in the game, but this is at Villa Park. We’re a bit
frustrated that we haven’t taken wins from our previous two and we want to use
that frustration in the right way. We want to take the game to Chelsea and be
as aggressive as we can.”
Chelsea manager Graham Potter, meanwhile, says “I think we have quite a
few games in a short space of time. So we’ve had to use the group as wisely as
possible which we’ve done. I’ve been really impressed with the guys, their
attitudes have been fantastic. There are still a few lads that haven’t had game
time but that isn’t because they’ve done anything wrong, they can field eleven.
So the main focus now is to go game to game and keep progressing. I don’t think
we’re at the maximum in terms of where the team is at, we’re not at the limit
and there is more to come from the team and individuals. So always keep an open
mind and we will see. There
are 24 players who all want to play and know the consequences if they do well.
So when you don’t pick them, they are disappointed and their egos are damaged
and they are hurt and disappointed. People are complex in all walks of life and
it’s not straightforward this job whatever the level. So far we have managed it
ok.
The margins are very small as we’ve said in the Premier League. I’m
sure Steven will want to improve the results and will be looking to this game
to try and do that. Had they beaten Nottingham Forest they would have gone
above Liverpool, so that shows you how quickly things can change. We have to
make sure we’re ready for the challenge.
In the Premier League, there is always someone under pressure. At the
moment it’s Steven but he has the quality and experience and will come through
it, I’m sure. So we have to make sure we’re good ourselves and with the
greatest respect, not worry too much about Aston Villa and concentrate on
ourselves.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Aston
Villa, Matty Cash, Cameron Archer and Leon Bailey are all
available.
For Chelsea,
N’Golo Kante (hamstring) and Wesley Fofana have now been joined on the injury
list by Reece James (knee) whilst we wait to hear how bad it is.
TEAMS
ASTON VILLA (Possible line-up): Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Young; McGinn, Luiz, Ramsey; Buendia,
Watkins, Coutinho
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Kepa; Chalobah, Thiago Silva, Koulibaly, Azpilicueta, Jorginho, Kovacic,
Chilwell, Sterling, Havertz, Aubameyang
LAST MEETING
Aston Villa 1-3 Chelsea
(26th December 2021)
CURRENT FORM (PL)
ASTON VILLA: LLDWDD
CHELSEA: LWLWWW
OTHER STUFF
- Aston Villa’s only win in the past 10 league
meetings came at home in the 2020-21 season.
- Chelsea have won six of their last eight away against
Aston Villa in the Premier League.
- Aston Villa are on a four-match unbeaten run
- Chelsea have won three league games in a row
- Only Wolves have scored fewer Premier League goals
than Villa this season.
- Aston Villa’s last nine league goals were scored by
nine different players.
- Chelsea could lose as many as three of their
opening five away games of a Premier League season for the second time
PREDICTION
Sportsmole: Aston Villa 1-2 Chelsea
