The Blues welcome Aston Villa to Stamford Bridge this Saturday for the 5.30pm kick off local time.
In the league, there is nothing between the two sides. Only goal difference puts Chelsea one place above Villa in 10th, which really does sum up our season.
Chelsea have another chance to get into single digits in terms of league position and go above Fulham into to 9th place, with Chelsea’s neighbours going to Bournemouth in the 3pm kick off.
Chelsea are unbeaten in the last four but stumbled against Everton. Performances have improved slightly on the whole, and the players are playing with more confidence and fight.
Villa have had a similar mixed bag of results this season and they are very inconsistent. They drew 1-1 with West Ham in their last game, but beat Crystal Palace and Everton before that.
Historically when I was younger Villa were always a bit of a bogy team for Chelsea. Overall though, Chelsea have the edge, winning 10 more than Villa have in this fixture.
In recent times since 2014, Chelsea have dominated this fixture. Villa have only one once in our last 12 meetings, and Chelsea won 10 of those games.
But that of course means absolutely nothing this Saturday, as Villa are proving that on form this season, they are level with Chelsea right now.
We have some late fitness calls to wait on, and also the fact that we had an international break and players like Enzo Fernandez has been traveling back late this week. Enzo provides a huge call for Potter to make as to whether he rests him. Reece James and Wesley Fofana are both going to be late calls after recent minor injuries.
So there might not be much point in doing a predicted team this early and until we hear more from Graham Potter about fatigue and fitness, but I’ll give it a complete random bash anyway.
I’m going with the assumptions that Potter won’t take risks if any doubts with James and Fofana, the fact Marc Cucurella is fresh, and the need for Enzo Fernandez!
Raheem Sterling of course did rejoin training earlier this week. N’Golo Kante will be two weeks fitter now as well and should certainly come off the bench at least.
But the biggest decision will be Enzo, a player who has played every game so far since he joined in January, but a player who only played a couple of days ago and had a long journey back. Personally, I think Potter will pick him.