The last time Aston Villa played in Stamford Bridge against Chelsea, it ended in a disastrous 8-0 defeat, possibly the lowest moment from the premier Birmingham club since the inaugural season of the Premier League. As the teams meet for the first time in 2013-2014, they’re hoping to continue their rather impressive start to London away matches.
They notched up what was probably the most impressive win of the opening gameweek, beating Arsenal 3-1 at the Emirates Stadiums, pretty much ending all the talk of an early disaster due to the very difficult schedule handed to them on the first week of the season, which includes playing against Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool in the span of 8 days.
Christian Benteke seems to be in the same kind of form that made him the revelation of the season next to Michu last seaosn, scoring twice, including once from the penalty kick, while the counter attacking game from Villa, pushing forward with Weimann and Agbonlahor who had excellent performances as well.
Chelsea looked very efficient for one half against Hull City before falling into a dull comfort zone with a goal from Oscar and Frank Lampard, but while Jose Mourinho seemed very proud of his conquering return to the Premier League, it was far from a perfect performance against a very weak opponent.
Hull City didn’t have the forward quality Aston Villa present, but Chelsea do not have the weak defensive midfield play or discipline we saw from Arsenal on the opening weekend. One of the interesting things will be the rotation Jose Mourinho will use, with Juan Mata and Romelu Lukaku starting on the bench in the previous match, and having a much better chance of finding themselves in the lineup this time.
Prediction – Aston Villa have some injury concerns that were also an issue against Arsenal, but that isn’t going to be the deciding factor. Chelsea still are far from peak form, but they have too much quality up front, especially when compared with Arsenal, to struggle so much in scoring against a team without the strongest of defenses.