Chelsea vs Aston Villa Pre-Match Thread - December 28th - 5.30pm

[Dr Butler]

Chelsea nil please Villa

UTV
The Doc

[eamonn]

How do Chelsea usually react to defeat? I hope today didn't take too much out of our lot as I can't see Dean rotating, he trusts the current line-up too much. I think we'll be the better team in a draw.

[TonyD]

Another win.  Chelsea looked toothless against the shittest Arsenal side for over 100 years. 

[Smirker]

I'll be stunned if we win tbh. Just the way momentum works, they're due a win, we're on a great run. It's got to come to an end. But I think we'll beat MU.

So an L here but a W vs MU.

Either way, FTF.

[Dave P]

Martinez
Cash, Konsa, Hause, Targett,
Elmo, Luiz
Traore, Grealish, El Ghazi;
Watkins

You’d drop McGinn?

[Richie]

They have lost 3 on the spin. Our form, particularly away, has been nothing short of brilliant. Why shouldn’t we be going there and not expecting to come home with the points ?

Chelsea 1 (Tammy)
Villa 2 (Traore, Ollie)

[Hookeysmith]

I would forsake a result here to beat the red bastards afterwards.

Its hard to imagine from the 10 year shit journey we have been on to now cannot wait for games to come around.

I love this team

[Monty]

It means a lot to me that we beat one of the these next two with the way the team's been playing. Prepare for back to back 3-0s, naturally.

[CT]

4-4. Wouldn’t be the first time.

[The Edge]

This time last year Chelsea dominated from start to finish and Willian ran the show. We're a different animal this time round. Still a very tough fixture and maybe it's my hangover talking but I really think we can get something. Our attacking strength is looking lethal. Them 1 us 2.

[supertom]

I'll be interested to see how our side holds up with stamina. We look so fit at the moment. We looked like we could have played another game last night. Lets see how it transpires against Chelsea. I don't envision us being made to chase shadows. We seem quite efficient in how we press and close, and honestly, Chelsea aren't that good. If it comes down to a battle of gameplans I'd expect Dean to best Lampard. If it's down to quality, I'd still think we can more than match them. In theory this could be a good game, end to end, and if we remain as organised at the back as we've generally been, we've got a good chance.

It shows how much we've come but a year ago I'd have settled for keeping the scores down in the next two. Now, I'd be disappointed with anything less than 3 points from the next two. This really will show us how good the engines are on some of our players too. You'd say that at some juncture McGinn, Watkins, Grealish who seem indefatigable, will need a rest, surely. But that doesn't seem to be the case just yet. Gerrard used to play 50-60 games a season for the Kop, and I could see Grealish doing the same. He's a cyborg.

[darren woolley]

1-1 Draw

[Big Ming]

Scoring first is key.

It let's us counter attack which we are becoming VERY good at.

[TonyD]

Really looking forward to tomorrow. 

But not as much as giving United a proper humping on Friday. 

[SoccerHQ]

Any reason why this couldn't have been played on Tuesday? Lampard was saying both clubs wanted to switch to Tuesday but was refused by TV for some reason.

Not sure why anyone is playing on Monday tbh without fans to consider.

Anyway despite how abysmal Chelsea were yesterday I still consider this a very tough game and would be more than delighted with a point, they completely swamped us down the flanks last season so we need to bunker like we did for Leicester and Wolves and see what we do on counter attack.

Would bring in Nakamaba for us but no idea who I'd take out which is a sign of how well we're doing. We need to squeeze Chelsea's midfield so they don't have time to quickly pass it out wide, I remember Reece James had freedome of right flank in the away game and set up majority of their chances that night.

3-2 defeat.