Chelsea’s FA Cup 4th round replay against Everton has given the Blues a bit of a scheduling nightmare, but Carlo Ancelotti’s side will still be itching for a win here to help build momentum and get themselves out of the slump they currently find themselves in.
Didier Drogba is expected to return to the starting XI, as Fernando Torres played against Manchester United in the 3rd round, so it cup-tied. Alex, Yury Zhirkov and Yossi Benayoun remain sidelined, but Ancelotti has no fresh selection worries.
As for Everton, young midfielder Jack Rodwell picked up an injury during the international break playing for England Under-21 side and Louis Saha is also set to miss out, which I imagine is great news for John Terry, who has had some torrid time when coming up against the former Manchester United and Fulham striker in the past.
Chelsea are unsurprisingly favourites at 1/4 and as the home side, the onus is on them to take the game to the Toffees. However, teams arguably do not fear coming to Stamford Bridge as they used to and David Moyes will have noticed how much Ancelotti’s side struggled to create anything against Fulham on Monday. But Everton’s last outing was much worse as Owen Coyle’s Bolton convincingly beat them 2-0, a game in which Chelsea’s very own Daniel Sturridge scored and Moyes described as one of the Goodison Park side’s worst performances under his tenure.
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Salomon Kalou came on to great effect in the last game between the two sides and forced the replay with his equalising goal, so I think he could be a decent shout to score the winner priced at 6/1, if you expect this to be a tight encounter. The Toffee’s biggest threat is likely to come from Tim Cahill, who is 5/2 to score at anytime and 17/2 to score either the first or last goal.
My prediction for this game is 3-1 Chelsea at 11/1, what result will you be putting your money on?
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(Chelsea fan) Torres could also win the match for us(chelsea). I still think he was a good acqusition.
leslie you say your a chelsea fan and your probably in love with torres aswell but if you had read the article correctly, it staes that torres is cup tied so i dont know how torres is going to help your chelsea team win anything