English Premier
2011-08-20 - Chelsea vs West Brom
A Sports Betting Pick by Lamps
Football : England : Premiership
Saturday 20th August - Kickoff 5:30pm
Chelsea
Andre Villas-Boas’s competitive debut as Chelsea manager ended in a 0-0 draw at Stoke which some see as a decent point but others see it as dropped points as the Blues dominated the second half to no avail. With both Manchester clubs winning the Blues already find themselves 2 points behind in the table, of course it’s early days but Chelsea will want to start winning and at home to WBA is a good time to do so.
Last Sunday we saw a cagey start by Chelsea in a lacklustre first half in which the Blues defended against Stoke’s direct play very well but didn’t create much at all. In the second half it was a game played in the Stoke half but as dramatic as that sounds apart from one headed chance for Kalou and a speculative Anelka shot that hit the bar, this side couldn’t unlock the Stoke defence.
The bright spark from that game was the performance of Fernando Torres, the striker had an awful 6 months at Chelsea at the back end of last year but he certainly looked his old self on Sunday. Yes, he didn’t’ score but he had more touches than any other Chelsea player and his directness was very encouraging. He received the ball and took players on and had it not been for a great last-ditch recovery tackle by Woodgate we may have seen an early candidate for goal of the season after El Nino beat 3 Stoke men with a mazy dribble. Chelsea fans are expected big things from him this year so hopefully on Saturday he’ll open his account for the season against a weaker opponent than Stoke.
Team news is that Cech has suffered a knee injury in training and will miss 4 weeks of the season. This is a massive blow to the side as Cech was incredibly solid last time out and his replacement Hilario is the complete opposite. Hilario, aka Hilarious is in my opinion (as a Chelsea fan) an awful keeper who has a clanger in him for sure, whilst his flapping punches worry me with every cross. I feel with a solid back 4 in front of him he’ll be ok on Saturday but the likes of Brunt and Morrision would be wise to test him from long range.
Elsewhere, Essien is still out of course as is Luiz who requires another week off following a knee injury. Daniel Sturridge serves game 2 of his ban and will be back in 2 weeks, as a result it’s as you were last time out with El Nino up top supported by Kalou and Malouda.
Predicted Chelseal Lineup:
Hilario, Bosingwa, Alex, Terry, Cole; Ramires, Mikel, Lampard; Kalou, Torres, Malouda.
West Brom
Roy Hodgson’s side opened the season with a defeat at home to Manchester United (2-1) making it 11 straight times WBA has lost to the Champions at home. This week they visit the side who came second and beat the Baggies 6-0 in last season’s match. The good news is that last year’s result was under current Chelsea assistant manager Di Matteo, hopefully for Baggies fans the more tactically astute Hodgson will get a better result.
I feel that WBA were a little hard done by last weekend, they were out played for 30 minutes of the first half but then caused United several problems and really pushed the Champions. With the score at 1-1 an incredibly lucky own goal from a Young cross that was going away from goal provided the winning moment and to emphasise how unlucky WBA were, they lost conceding just one shot on target!
Being a notoriously attacking side I don’t think helps WBA against Chelsea. Whilst they had very good spells against United, I must add that this was after United lost both centre backs to injury and fielded a lot of youngsters in the game. Whilst Smalling, Cleverley, Fabio, Jones, Wellbeck, De Gea and Anderson are good players they are incredibly inexperienced in one sense or another and up against Chelsea’s line-up I don’t think they will get the same success.
Team news is that no one is officially ruled through injury but like Sturridge for Chelsea, Gera has a suspension still hang over him and he misses out. There are a few doubts though to the likes of McAuley, Mulumbu, Odemwingie, Reid and Thomas. Of the doubts only Thomas is expected to miss out with a hip injury, he’s not trained in the early part of the week and Hodgson will keep his wingers in Morrison and Brunt. Odemwingie should start pushing Long to the bench whilst McAuley will make his debut pushing most likely Tamas to bench. The rest is as you were last time against United.
Predicted West Brom Lineup:
Foster, Jara, McAuley, Olsson, Shorey; Brunt, Mulumbu, Scharner, Morrison, Tchoyi. Long
The Betting Verdict
Both sides come into this thinking they probably were a bit hard done by last week and both will want to put things right this week. Unfortunately for WBA going to the ground that they lost 6-0 last year as well as losing the last 5 without scoring, historically this looks like an awful match up.
If Chelsea applies the same amount of pressure as they did on Stoke on WBA from the get go then I can only see one winner, it’s the first game of the season at Stamford Bridge and the players will surely be fired up for this one.
My only concern is the inclusion of Hilario, literally anything can happen with him in goal and it's because of him just in case im put off the asian handicap market as 1 WBA goal could ruin everything!
I expect Chelsea to win this but the odds, as expected are awful instead I’ll take a gamble on EL Nino to get his season going with a goal.
Good Luck.
The Statistics :
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The Pick :
Chelsea 2-0 West Brom
