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2011-09-21 - Chelsea vs Fulham
A Sports Betting Pick by Addicted
Football : English Carling Cup
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011, 7:45PM GMT
PREVIEW
Very different end to both games as Chelsea look to bounce back from a 3-1 loss against Manchester United while Fulham make the short journey across West London to take on their richer neighbours after a wonderful fightback against a dangerous Manchester City.
Fulham were 2-0 down, seemingly dead and buried but out of nowhere conjured up 2 goals to take a point off Manchester City, the first team to do so in the league this season. However, despite that result, it is important to remember that Fulham have played more games this season that anyone else and must be absolutely knackered.
It has shown in their results too as prior to this weekends heroics Fulham had a couple of 1-1 draws at home against Twente and Blackburn, while Newcastle, Dnipropetrovsk and Wolves all beat Fulham on their own patch before that.
Chelsea had their chances against United, despite going 1-0 down very early. Torres scored his 2nd goal to lift the mood and after Rooney missed a penalty it took an unbelievably shocking miss by Torres to avoid the score going 3-2, which might have changed the mood of the game a bit.
Villas Boas needs to give Abramovich something this season, after the club forked out a packet to get him from Porto. A loss here against their local rivals is unthinkable and for that reason alone I can see him throwing on the strongest team he can afford to without affecting the weekends game.
Romelu Lukaku should see time on the pitch and I would consider taking him to either open the scoring or to at least net during the 90 mins if he makes the starting line-up.
BETTING VERDICT
I see Chelsea winning this. Fulham might just rest a few players and in addition to being tired, they might well suffer an emotional letdown after what they managed to do with their backs against the wall.
The prices on Chelsea to simply win are too small so I will chance the HT result and go for Chelsea to be winning at the break.
The Pick :
Chelsea
