Chelsea return to Premier League action on Saturday when take on Leicester City at Stamford Bridge.
This fixture is never an easy one for Chelsea, even when they win. When these two teams met last season at Stamford Bridge, the result was a 0-0 draw that saw Ben Chilwell sent off for two bookable offences and Leicester put in stout defensive performance to earn a point.
It’s likely that Claude Puel will send his Leicester side out with a similar plan. You could say that they had a bit of a warm-up for this match by facing Manchester City in the Carabao Cup midweek.
Granted, the Foxes faced a weakened Manchester City side, but they were able to force City to penalties before losing 3-1 in the shootout.
Jamie Vardy missed out midweek with a groin problem but is likely to play against Chelsea on Saturday, and Ben Chilwell has been out for the last two matches with a knee problem and also could feature.
Chelsea also saw action midweek in the Carabao Cup, overcoming a very resilient Bournemouth side to win 1-0. Eden Hazard was given a place on the bench but was forced to come on to bring his side a creative spark, and he did so by scoring the winning goal via a deflection.
The one downside is that Andreas Christensen limped off with a small hamstring injury during the Bournemouth match and will be unavailable for at least the next two matches. It’s unfortunate for Christensen, though he was unlikely to play against Leicester.
Alvaro Morata is also out due to a knee injury and since Olivier Giroud played the full 90 minutes on Wednesday, the experiment with Eden Hazard playing as a striker may continue on Saturday.
Maurizio Sarri has said that he played Hazard at striker for a purely tactical reason against Manchester City, but he decided to continue to the experiment against Brighton to see if it would work against a different system.
This will be another test with Leicester being a team that primarily plays on the counter attack and can stay organised at the back.
Another three points for Chelsea would make this a pretty good December so far, with the only three points dropped to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
