Chelsea vs. Leicester City
Venue: Stamford Bridge
Kick off: 4PM
Chelsea head into their Premier League encounter with Leicester City this afternoon looking to record their third successive win in the top flight.
Chelsea are still someway short of being the finished article under Maurizio Sarri, but the Blues continue to find a way to churn out results in order to remain in the top four of the table.
The defeats at Tottenham Hotspur and Wolves were a wakeup call for a side who had previously put together an unbeaten run lasting over three months, but hard-fought wins over Manchester City and Brighton & Hove Albion have improved the mood at Stamford Bridge.
Their efforts in the final third remain a concern with Chelsea having gone six games without netting more than twice in a top-flight fixture, and their lack of a clinical touch was once again on show during the narrow 1-0 win over Bournemouth in the EFL Cup quarter-finals.
Chelsea created 25 shots and registered as many as 12 on target, but it took a heavily-deflected effort from Eden Hazard to finally get the better of Cherries stopper Artur Boruc.
Hazard has now scored 10 goals in all competitions this season, but it is nine assists in the Premier League which have perhaps made him the standout player in English football during the first half of the campaign.
However, Chelsea still have issues in the centre-forward role with Olivier Giroud only netting one domestic goal since the beginning of August, while the backline still looks shaky at times despite four clean sheets coming from their last seven outings.
Results are all that will matter over a hectic schedule over Christmas and New Year, but Sarri will remain unsatisfied until his players have fully adapted to his tactics.
Whether that materialises this season remains to be seen, but getting 12 points on the board from four games over the next two weeks is the short-term objective and achieving that target may be enough to close the gap on the top two.
On the other hand, Leicester make the trip to Stamford Bridge having dropped down to 12th position in the standings, although the Foxes remain just three points adrift of seventh-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Chelsea possible XI: Arrizabalaga, Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Luiz, Alonso, Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic, Willian, Giroud, Hazard.
Leicester City possible XI: Schmeichel, Pereira, Morgan, Maguire, Fuchs, Mendy, Ndidi, Gray, Maddison, Ghezzal, Vardy.