A top four finish is the minimum requirement in the league for Carlo Ancelotti’s Chelsea side, so they will be eager to beat west London rivals Fulham in order to regain fourth spot from Tottenham, who went three points clear of the Blues on Saturday.
Ancelotti hailed his new signing David Luiz and the Brazilian is set for his first Chelsea start after impressing in his cameo appearance against Liverpool last weekend, which was arguably the only positive for the Blues in the game. Luiz is likely to partner JT in central defence and Branislav Ivanovic, who signed a new deal at the club, is expected to play at right back.
Fernando Torres’ debut against his old club failed to live up to the media’s hype, but the Chelsea manager is determined to find a system which will get the best out of his most valuable attacking assets:
“My aim as a coach is to try and find the best solution with the players I have.
“In this squad Drogba and Torres are fantastic strikers and we have to try and do everything to get them to play together.”
(BBC Sport)
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As for Mark Hughes’ Fulham options, Gael Kakuta is unavailable as he cannot play against his parent club and Bobby Zamora is unlikely to feature despite playing for the Fulham reserves in the week.
Hughes isn’t the only former Blue who’s coming up against his old club on Monday night as Eidur Gudjohnsen is also in the Cottagers’ squad and is 7/2 to score at anytime against his old club.
Naturally Torres and Didier Drogba lead the betting regarding goal scorers as both are 9/2 to score the first/last goal and 13/10 to score at anytime. None of the usual suspects for Chelsea really represent a good value for money in my opinion, in terms of betting, but there’s no harm in sticking a cheeky pound for Luiz to score the first goal on his full debut at 33/1, right?
The game is a hard one to call at the moment as you’re always unsure which Chelsea will turn up, but I’m going to predict a 2-1 away win, which is priced at 15/2
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