Chelsea vs. Crystal Palace
Venue: Stamford Bridge
Kick off: 12:30PM
Chelsea will be keen to put a challenging week behind them when they welcome London rivals Crystal Palace to Stamford Bridge at lunchtime Premier League kickoff.
Frank Lampard’s side were forced to pull off a three-goal comeback at West Bromwich Albion last weekend before being knocked out of the EFL Cup in midweek, while Palace are also looking to bounce back from a defeat.
The pre-season buzz of excitement which surrounded big-spending Chelsea has faded somewhat after an underwhelming start to the new campaign.
Talk of a potential title challenge was put on hold when they were a distant second-best to Liverpool during their opening home league game of the season last month, while their costly defensive issues were glaringly exposed last weekend against West Brom.
Lampard watched on angrily as his error-prone side fell three goals down inside 27 minutes and, while the second-half fightback will have cheered him up somewhat, they looked a long way away from a title-challenging team at The Hawthorns.
Goalkeeper Edouard Mendy is now available, though, and offered a glimpse of exactly why Chelsea were so keen to sign him with a good debut performance against Tottenham Hotspur in midweek.
Even that was not enough to send Chelsea through to the quarter-finals, though, as a late Erik Lamela equaliser forced penalties and Mason Mount missed the crucial spot kick to condemn the Blues to defeat against a Spurs side playing their second game in three days.
Timo Werner’s first competitive goal for the club was one positive to take from that match and he will hope that the floodgates now open, having made a relatively slow start to life in the Premier League so far.
Chelsea are still looking for their first home league win of the season after losing to Liverpool in their opener – only the third time they have ever lost their opening home match of a Premier League campaign and a result which puts them in danger of losing their first two home games of a top-flight season for the first time since 1978-79.
The Eagles have already beaten Manchester United at Old Trafford this season, having lost their final four away games of last season without scoring, and go into the match sitting pretty in sixth – three places and two points above their hosts.
Manager Roy Hodgson will feel as though they should be higher, though, and the footballing world seems to agree; his grim assessment of the handball law after last weekend’s defeat to Everton has been held up as the most succinct and cutting criticism of it yet.
The reason for Hodgson’s ire was a controversially-awarded penalty given against Joel Ward, who could do nothing to prevent Lucas Digne’s header from hitting his hand in the area – an incident which allowed Everton to dispatch the winning goal from the spot.
Not only did that cost Palace a point, it also cost them their unbeaten start to the league season having shaken off such a poor end to 2019-20 with back-to-back victories over Southampton and Manchester United.
However, although the injustice of the Everton defeat may sting for a while, Hodgson will still take belief from the fact that it took a universally unpopular decision to undo his side and, when it comes to matters inside their control, they have been impressive this term.
Palace will therefore make the trip across London full of confidence that they can take something home from Stamford Bridge despite losing their last five meetings with Chelsea.
Chelsea possible XI: Mendy, James, Christensen, Thiago Silva, Chilwell, Kante, Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, Werner, Abraham.
Crystal Palace possible XI: Guaita, Ward, Kouyate, Sakho, Mitchell, Townsend, McCarthy, McArthur, Eze, Ayew, Zaha.