Chelsea v Aston Villa

Chelsea suffered a defeat in the final of the Club World Cup ...a 1-0 win by Corinthians of Brazil ..manager Rafael Benitez blamed poor finishing for his side`s defeat ...he will be hoping that against Aston Villa his players will be less wasteful .



Aston Villa left Anfield with all 3pts as they stunned the Kop by beating Liverpool 3-1 , it was fully deserved and manager Paul Lambert was quick to praise his side after the match ..he said "The whole performance was fabulous. The goals were excellent, as was the way we defended."I thought we were excellent. The goals were brilliant, the second goal, with the movement and the backheel, especially.

I would be very surprised if Aston Villa repeated last weeks performance at Liverpool
and although Chelsea have just come back from Japan and take on Leeds tonight still fancy them to win this one.

Chelsea 3-1 Aston Villa

Chelsea's flight was delayed from Japan due to late-night take-off restrictions in Tokyo and they didn't return until Monday afternoon. They have a tough away trip to Leeds tonight and could be quite fatigued when they face Villa.

This fixture last season ended 3-1 to Aston Villa.

If you exclude the games against Man City and Man Utd, Aston Villa have not lost in their last 9 games in all competitions.

Generally the odds on Chelsea are 1/3 which clearly don't take into account the above factors.

While Villa have conceded an average of 1.77 goals away from home in the league this season those stats are skewed by City putting 5 past them and Southampton scoring 4. Excluding those two games from their away stats leave an average away goals conceded of just 1 goal per game while Chelsea are experiencing a bit of a goal drought when you look at their last 7 Premier League games they have scored 3-1-0-0-1-1-1 with just a single win in this period which has left them 13 points behind Man Utd (with a game in hand against Southampton).

Villa put 3 goals past a Liverpool team in their last match who had not conceded 3 or more goal at home in their previous 63 home premier league matches and coincidentally it was Villa who scored 3 goals against them before all the way back in August 2009.






Benitez is under pressure to deliver some silverware this season and has gone with a strong team against Leeds tonight which won't give most of the players sufficient time to recover from their travels:

Chelsea team to face Leeds: Cech; Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Luiz, Bertrand; Lampard, Oscar; Moses, Mata, Marin; Torres.
Subs: Turnbull, Cole, Hazard, Ferreira, Piazon, Saville, Ake.

I'm really pulling for Villa this season....I try to remain impartial since I cover the game, but I'm really hoping they can pull out a victory at Stamford Bridge on SUnday. Think they can do it?

Chelsea will be full of confidence after their big 5-1 cup win at old rivals Leeds the other night and should win this home game easily.

Did you know that Rafael Benitez has suffered just one defeat in 12 meetings with Aston Villa as a Premier League manager (W7 D4).

Any more comments or predictions?

I'm going for Villa on this one! Not technically a supporter but would love to see them beat Chelsea - have enjoyed watching them over the last couple weeks

I think this would be for the Blues. 3 - 1, Chelsea.

Line ups

Chelsea:
Cech; Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Cahill, Cole; David Luiz, Lampard; Moses, Mata, Hazard; Torres.

Subs: Turnbull, Ferreira, Ake, Ramires, Oscar, Marin, Piazon.

Aston Villa:
Guzan, Lowton, Baker, Clark, Lichaj, Holman, Westwood, Bannan, Herd, Weimann, Benteke.

Subs: Given, Bowery, El Ahmadi, Ireland, Bennett, Delph, Albrighton.

Well, game over. Hope that AV are on similar form come Noxing Day! COYS!

Or even Boxing Day?? Sorry, a little too much Christmas cheer! Villa are sh*te.

HT

Chelsea 3-0 Aston Villa

Torres,Luiz and Ivanovic with the goals have all but sealed the 3 points.

How many will Chelsea score in the 2nd half?!

AV have dropped thier shorts and bent over to Chelski. Garbage.....

Pathetic from Villa,it always annoys me when teams can't motivate themselves against smaller teams

a) there was at the very most a chance of 1 point, and even that was only a very slim possibility.
b) it wasn't a six-pointer, nothing was to be gained from Chelsea losing points

It really isn't surprising if managers treat matches against the CL teams as the lesser matches.

I've no idea what your post meant...

I was saying it is annoying how Villa couldn't motivate themselves against Chelsea

FT

Chelsea 8-0 Aston Villa
1-0 Torres 3’
2-0 David Luiz 29’
3-0 Ivanovic 34'
4-0 Lampard 59’
5-0 Ramires 75’
6-0 Oscar 79’ (pen.)
7-0 Hazard 83'
8-0 Ramires 90’

Congrats to Frank Lampard who scored on his 500th PL appearance.

Was it like watching Brazil today or were Aston Villa just so poor that anybody would have beaten them?

Any more comments on todays massacre!

In England - traditionally a rain. But today that was a rain of goals! Aston Villa currently aren't the top team, but they should show something more in the match against Chelsea. They seemed to be scared of the rivals and they would have liked not to play today at all. But also huge congratulations and respect for Chelsea. It's nice to see that players from all position scored. And Torres, who probably likes working with Rafa Benitez. Undoubtedly he is born again when Spanish coach came to Stamford Bridge.

How about those Premier league defences? Couldn't cut it on a warm, sunny night in Andalucia.

It's incredible how a team could defend in such a bad way!
And Chelsea also failed a penalty!