Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Chelsea are sweating on the fitness of Eden Hazard after he suffered a hip injury in the defeat at Leicester.
Gary Cahill, Pedro and Baba Rahman are all pushing for recalls as the Blues look to end a two-game losing run.
Sunderland remain without Lee Cattermole and Sebastian Larsson due to respective back and knee injuries.
Sebastian Coates is a doubt having missed training this week with flu, but Younes Kaboul is expected to be fit.
Editor’s Note: Here we go then the first game of the post Mourinho era and it’s a relegation 6 pointer at home to Sunderland. I don’t think anyone thought that they would be reading that in December.
The Blues are a staggering 20 points behind league leaders Leicester but at the moment need to be looking over their shoulders towards the dropzone and forgetting about any title or even European aspirations for that matter.
Steve Holland will take charge today and it’s his job to get a rise in performance from this world class unit of players, especially after such a woeful offering on Monday away at Leicester.
Can he get Diego Costa looking something like a Footballer and not the wind up merchant that he’s been more concerned with being this season. That will be a key point today but with Sunderland coming to visit with Big Sam at the helm, you know that they will set out to unsettle Costa and get him riled up to distract from the game.
Allardyce brings a Black Cats side that are showing some signs of life, although they’ve lost their last two matches, the two prior to that saw them register 6 points so there are certainly signs that the improvement job by Big Sam is taking place.
Today though I think Chelsea are going to have a bounce to them now that Mourinho has gone, they certainly need to. I would expect them to play with a certain amount of freedom now that the Special One has departed therefore Sunderland have visited a week too late. Chelsea to bounce back and get all 3 points while Holland keeps the hot seat warm for Hiddink.
