High-flying Aston Villa will welcome struggling Chelsea to Villa Park on Boxing Day looking to continue their hot form in Premier League under Steven Gerrard.
Venue: Villa Park
Key Statistics
Aston Villa have won just two of their last five home games (L3).
The hosts have failed to score in only one of their last six competitive games.
Ollie Watkins scored Villa’s first goal of the Gerrard era and has directly contributed to four across Gerrard’s six games (G3, A1).
Chelsea have kept only one clean sheet in their last eight games.
The visitors have lost just one of their last nine away games in all competitions (W6, D2).
They are unbeaten in all five prior Boxing Day H2Hs (W3, D2).
Head to head
Chelsea have the upper hand in this fixture. They have enjoyed eleven wins in their last 15 head-to-head meetings with Villa who have just two wins in that period (D2).
Latest Performances in all competitions
Aston Villa: W-L-W-L-W
Chelsea: W-D-D-W-D
Aston Villa
After a COVID-19 enforced hiatus, Aston Villa will return to League action this Sunday. The Villains, like many of their Premier League counterparts, had their game postponed due to an outbreak of the Omicron virus within their squad.
But with the virus now contained and their status confirmed, Steven Gerrard and his men will look to continue from where they stopped before the break.
The hosts under Gerrard have picked up four wins in six games. The latest of those wins came against Norwich two weeks back with goals from Jacob Ramsey and Ollie Watkins, sealing the result for the hosts on that night.
That result pushed them into the top half of the table, just four points behind the last European spot.
They will look to build on that win, but face a much bigger challenge in the form of European champions Chelsea, a side Gerrard faced more times during his playing career than any other (W11, D11, L18).
Despite a poor head-to-head record with Chelsea, the former Liverpool captain will fancy his side’s chances of taking maximum points from this game.
Possible Aston Villa starting line-ups
Lukas Fabianski; Benjamin Johnson, Criag Dawson, Issa Diop, Arthur Masuaku; Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek; Manuel Lanzini, Pablo Fornals, Nikola Vlasic; Jarrod Bowen.
Injured: Angelo Ogbonna, Kurt Zouma,
Doubtful: Michail Antonio, Aaron Cresswell
Suspended: Vladimir Coufal
Chelsea
Chelsea booked their place in the next round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday when they defeated Brentford 2-0. The win, which was secured with the help of some academy players, would have given the Blues some much-needed relief following a disappointing run of results.
Thomas Tuchel‘s side since the turn to the month have struggled for form, and have gone from league leaders to top-four contenders.
They come into this tie sitting in third, six points behind Manchester City who are leading the pack. Their last PL outing saw them escape with a 0-0 draw with Wolves, the fourth time they dropped points in the last six PL games. It was also the second consecutive time they drew a PL game.
They will now be looking to avoid another dropped point here against Villa to avoid falling further behind the top.
They are expected to pick up maximum points here though as they have never gone winless in three consecutive PL games under Tuchel.
Possible Chelsea starting line-ups
Edouard Mendy; Antonio Rudiger, Thiago Silva, Ceaser Azpilicueta; Reece James, N’Golo Kante, Jorginho, Marcos Alonso, Ross Barkley; Mason Mount, Romelu Lukaku.
Injured: Ben Chilwell, Timo Werner and Kai Havertz.
Doubtful: None
Suspended: None
Prediction
Aston Villa 2-1 Chelsea
