Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
After yesterday’s head to head between Manchester City and Tottenham you would have to say that Chelsea were the big winners there thanks to the two title rivals having to make do with just a share of the points, add into the mix Liverpool’s defeat earlier in the day and it was a perfect set of results for the league leaders.
And Today they will have the opportunity in which to take full advantage of that as they play host to Hull at Stamford Bridge, knowing that they could be as many as 9 points clear from the team that sits in second. Surely now this is their title to lose, that is if it was not already.
The headlines are once again dominated by Diego Costa, with any talk of a possible move to China being cooled until at least the Summer the question that everyone wants to know is whether or not he will start this Afternoon. In Friday’s press conference Chelsea manager Antonio Conte confirmed he was available but refused to give away anymore than that.
Partly was because he said that he didn’t want to give an advantage to Hull in regards to their preparations and also at that point, I doubt Conte himself had even decided whether or not to return the Spanish international back to the starting fold.
In Costa’s absence last weekend The Blues did not miss him as they strolled to a 3-0 win away at champions Leciester. So the decision now is whether Conte sticks with the team from last week or whether Costa is recalled, right now your guess is as good as everyone else.
They play host to a Hull side that gave Marco Silva the perfect Premier League managerial debut last weekend after coming from behind to beat Bournemouth 3-1. That was a win that will have undoubtedly given the Hull players a huge lift as the former Olympiakos manager looks to get his new club out of the bottom three.
They travel to Stamford Bridge a player lighter after the departure of Jake Livermore to West Brom earlier in the week, the former Tottenham man has moved to the Midlands for £10m and you would have to imagine that money will be reinvested in a bid to get new faces into the club to help The Tigers plight.
When these two teams met earlier in the season it was a routine win for Chelsea at The KCom Stadium, that was when Hull were giving away goals for fun and they certainly cannot afford to play the same way in West London later Today.
Marco Silva is going to have to make sure that his backline is water tight to give themselves even half a chance of getting anything out of this game, regardless who starts up front for Chelsea you know that the Hull defence are going to be in for a long Afternoon.
It’s very much a free hit for Hull, but as Swansea proved yesterday these kind of results are not impossible therefore they will go into this game with some belief that an upset could be on the cards. Chelsea will go into this game as heavy favourites and rightly so as they look to assert their dominance at the top of the table.
As romantic as a Hull victory would be Today, I just can’t see anything other than a Chelsea win. The rest of the title chasing teams will undoubtedly all be Hull fans for a few hours but unfortunately I think all those newly found fans will be disappointed as the blue machine rolls on. A home win for me.
