Date: Sunday 13th
April 2025
Venue: Stamford Bridge
Kick-off: 14:00 BST
It’s another 2pm Sunday kick-off for us,
and this afternoon we play host to the Tractor Boys.
Chelsea come into this game off the back
of what ended up a reasonable win against Legia Warsaw Thursday night after yet
another eyesore in the first half. We were woeful against Brentford last
weekend though, and little wonder given the constant messing about with the
starting XI by the clueless wonder masquerading as a manager.
We start the day 6th in the
table after wins for both City and Villa yesterday and level on points with
Newcastle below us, who have played a game less, so our chances of a top five
finish are looking slimmer every week.
Ipswich, meanwhile, lost to Wolves in their last game, sit 18th in the table and will come to Stamford Bridge fighting for their lives. They have an ace up their sleeve with Liam Delap and don’t fare too badly on their travels, so anyone imagining this should be a straightforward win are kidding themselves. Cole Palmer has failed to score in 13 consecutive league and cup appearances and Nicolas Jackson is still in the very early stages of a return from his lay-off. I’m not even going to talk about Nkunku’s form because it’s frankly non-existent. Add to that the absence of anything remotely resembling a decent goalkeeper and it’s hard to know where the results will come from in the final 7 games.
Naturally, Ipswich will come into this the
underdogs, but Maresca will undoubtedly put out a ridiculous starting XI for
Charity FC in his unwavering pursuit of the Puppet of the Year award, to
underline there are no such thing as underdogs against Chelsea under the
current owners.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into
today’s game, Enzo Maresca says “Sometimes you win games when the
performance is not top and sometimes you don’t win games in the other way. Overall,
we started the season winning games away, and now we struggle a little bit to
win games away. Hopefully, in the seven games to go, we can continue to win the
games at home and win the games away. We have seven games to go, but we’ve been
saying with 12, 13, 14 games to go that we need to keep winning. In the last
game against Brentford, we did enough to win the game. Unfortunately, we didn’t
score, but we shot more than 20 times, so it’s a matter of taking the chances. It’s
important we continue to create and at the end we will see [where we are in the
table].
They
[Ipswich] are a good team, I know that from last year. They are a very good
team, with a good manager. The Premier League is for sure different, but they
are doing well. It will be a tough game, no doubt. In this moment, any team you
face is complicated. No matter if it’s Southampton, Ipswich or Leicester, because
they want to show themselves and finish in the right way. They don’t like to
lose games, so it will be tough.”
Ipswich
manager Keiran McKenna, meanwhile, says “To beat that Chelsea team with the
strength that they have, with how good they are – well-coached, fantastic
individuals, incredibly built squad – took an incredible team effort and
it’s going to have to be the same on Sunday. They’ve built a really formidable
squad, a really young, talented, athletic squad. I don’t know how many
changes they made for the game on Thursday evening (five), but I think it
was a very different starting 11 to the one that faced Brentford last
weekend. So we know we’re going to face a pretty fresh and pretty close to
full strength Chelsea, which is a great challenge and a big challenge for us to
take on.
It’s
a Premier League season. It’s really hard to be at your best across 38 games.
They’ve had injuries in that time as well. Certainly watching some of the
recent games, as we have, they’re still a very, very good side. They’re
certainly one of the best teams in the division and I think they’re going
to be one of the best teams in the division for years to come. With the squad
that they’ve built, I think they’re going to stay in the top echelons for a
long time.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Chelsea, Marc Guiu (hamstring), Omari
Kellyman (hamstring), Wesley Fofana (hamstring) and Romeo Lavia (muscle) are injured.
Mykhaylo Mudryk (suspended) also remains out.
For Ipswich, Conor Townsend is a doubt.
TEAMS
CHELSEA
(Possible line-up): Sanchez;
Gusto, Chalobah, Colwill, Cucurella; Caicedo, Fernandez; Madueke, Palmer, Neto;
Jackson
IPSWICH (Possible
line-up): Palmer; Tuanzebe, O’Shea, Burgess, Davis; Morsy,
Cajuste; Johnson, Broadhead, Enciso; Delap
LAST SEASON
N/A
CURRENT FORM (ALL)
Chelsea: LWWLWD
Ipswich: WWWWLW
OTHER STUFF
- Ipswich beat Chelsea 2-0 at Portman Road in the reverse fixture in
December.
- Ipswich have lost their last five league and cup games at Stamford
Bridge.
- Chelsea have won five consecutive Premier League home games.
- Chelsea have lost two top-flight home games this season.
- Chelsea have kept a clean sheet in four of their last five league
games.
- Ipswich are vying to win consecutive top-flight away games for the
first time since February 2002.
- Ipswich have failed to keep a clean sheet in 12 successive league games
– ironically since beating us in December.
- Ipswich have earned 65% of their points this season away from home.
PREDICTION
Sportsmole: Chelsea 2-0 Ipswich
