Premier League - Aston Villa vs Chelsea

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Premier League Matchday 30 sees Chelsea travel to Villa Park to face off against Aston Villa in a fixture that's seen its share of drama in recent seasons. Apart from the 6-goal thriller played out there 2 years ago, the fixture last season was the one Chelsea sealed Champions League qualification in, via a pair of goals from Frank Lampard that saw him become the club's all-time highest goalscorer. A repeat of that kind of spectacle might be hard to expect this time around, but with Chelsea looking to maintain their place at the Premier League's summit, and Aston Villa looking in little danger of relegation at this point, a quality match could certainly be in store.










The corresponding fixture last season, as mentioned, was the match that saw Chelsea clinch Champions League qualification with a 2-1 victory over their hosts. A stalemate with Spurs in the previous gameweek meant assuring a place in Europe's elite competition was to be put off another week, but a game against struggling Aston Villa 3 days later would provide the perfect opportunity for the Blues to finally seal the deal. It all appeared to be going awry, however, when Christian Benteke scored just 14 minutes in to put the home side unexpectedly ahead. Things got even worse for the visiting Blues when Ramires was shown a second yellow card on the stroke of halftime, and it all appeared to be going disastrously wrong for Rafa Benitez's men. They were given a boost and a shot of renewed confidence, however, when 13 minutes into the second half, Villa striker and opening goalscorer Christian Benteke was also sent off, and the game was numerically level once again. The Blues leveled up the score as well just 3 minutes later when Frank Lampard hit a wonderful effort to put his side on equal terms with their opponents and drag himself right next to Bobby Tambling as the club's joint-highest goalscorer in history. Some 25 minutes later, Lampard scored again, to edge both the Blues ahead of their counterparts on the day and himself in the annals in the club's history, officially becoming the Blues' all-time highest goalscorer to send the away crowd into euphoria.










The reverse fixture this season in the second game of the young Premier League campaign also resulted in a 2-1 win for Chelsea. The Blues took the lead just 6 minutes in when Antonio Luna headed Eden Hazard's wicked cross into his own net. The visitors fought back, however, and equalised at the absolute death of first-half stoppage time through Christian Benteke. The Blues appeared to be headed for an unsatisfactory result once the 70th minute creeped up, and were probably lucky to still have 11 men on the pitch by that time, but managed to break through again with just over 15 minutes remaining through Branislav Ivanovic, to ultimately hand José Mourinho's men a vital 3 points.










Aston Villa had the previous gameweek off due to their Matchday 29 fixture being against Manchester City, who participated in the FA Cup quarterfinals the same day, but Chelsea triumphed over a feckless Tottenham side at Stamford Bridge 4-0, via goals from Samuel Eto'o, Eden Hazard, and a brace from Demba Ba.










Injured for the home side are striker Libor Kozák and centre-half Jores Okore, while Chelsea will be without defensive pair Ashley Cole and David Luiz, as well as Fernando Torres, who sustained an injury in the pre-match warm-up ahead of the Blues' eventual 4-0 thumping of Tottenham at Stamford Bridge after being named as a starter for the match.

Another week rest, I'd say play the same lineup as Spurs, but drop Ramires for Oscar and Perhaps Willian for Schurrle.

We should win this but I don't think it will be easy.

We always struggle in this fixture. Not going to be easy at all.

Except when we thrashed them 8 0.

Didn't realise that took place at Villa Park....


 

I thought you meant Villa in General.

I clearly said fixture

Fixture does not always imply location, it simply implies which team we are facing.

Christ

Regardless, we should win this.

I can see Villa trying to park the bus and playing out to Benteke so we should play Matic-Lampard in CM with Probably Schurrle, Hazard and Oscar infront. Eto'o up top and same defence. Try dominate play, allow Schurrle and Ivanovic to be our width and look for an early goal to kill them off.

We should be winning it, yea. Simply pointing out our record there in recent history is not good. 3 wins in our last 10 (albeit 2 of them in the last 2 visits - though we did make very hard work of even those even though they were battling relegation both seasons) and our record there under José is awful:

2004/05 — Draw
2005/06 — Draw
2006/07 — Draw
2007/08 — Loss

Oh wow. Crazy!

I rest my case #omniscientshed

I thought we were agreeing, and neither of us had different cases?

Don't try to rewrite history now, bucko

This is going to be tough, everyone knows they can't slip up

Shouldn't change much, I'd prefer to see Eto'o start with Ba on the bench.

ASTON VILLA XI: Guzan, Bacuna, Vlaar, Baker, Bennett, Westwood, Delph, El Ahmadi, Weimann, Benteke, Agbonlahor

CHELSEA XI: Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry (c), Azpilicueta; Ramires, Matic; Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Torres

SUBS: Steer, Sylla, Holt, Clark, Albrighton, Lowton, Robinson


SUBS: Schwarzer, Kalas, Mikel, Lampard, Schurrle, Salah, Ba

No idea why Eto'o's being seemingly rested for Gala and Torres starting today when the latter is clearly our best striker in Europe...

Lul interesting... the 38 y.o needs rest

Lets see how this Matic / Rambo combination works out.