Blackburn Rovers v Chelsea
Football: England, Premier League 2009/2010
Sunday 21st March 2010 - Kickoff 4pm

---

Blackburn Rovers

Last 5 Games At Home W4-D1-L0 F10-A3

Big Sam’s Blackburn Rovers are having a decent season sitting nicely in 12th place and a huge 10 points clear of the relegation zone. Unfortunately for them they are a bit too far away to mount a real push for Europe but with prize money at stake for a higher placed finished they certainly will continue to look for wins and a high league position.

Up next for the Lancashire club is Chelsea at home which shouldn’t scare Blackburn at all, especially when we analyse their tremendous home form of late. Like many others who have been betting on Blackburn at home lately, they probably thought “yeah they are going ok” but didn’t realise that this Rovers are on a 5 game unbeaten streak.

Since losing to Spurs in mid December no side has come away with 3 points at Ewood Park which has delighted Sam Allardyce. In this unbeaten run, his club has beaten Bolton, Hull, Wigan, and Fulham (the last 4 at home), whilst Sunderland took a point back in late December. Now I realise many will say that this group of sides are not the best, Blackburn can only beat who is in front of them and to be fair to them they have won these games well.

For me what’s impressive is the defensive display shown by this side, in that 5 game spell only 3 goals were conceded and two of those came against Sunderland in December. It’s not just against these average-below average sides that Blackburn has been defensively sound, when looking at their goals against in total at home, they have conceded 12 goals in 14 games which is an average of 0.85 goals conceded a game.

This may bring a “so?” response from many of you but when we compare this stat to other Premiership sides we can see that Chelsea average 0.86 as do Liverpool, two sides that are very good at home. For me being in that company can only be a good ting and it’s a fantastic platform for Big Sam’s side to work from, knowing you may only need 1 goal to win a game is priceless in this division and this Rovers side definitely is in that category.

The only fear from a Rovers point of view is their record against the “top 4,” so far this season Allardyce’s men has faced the top 4 five times and has only taken 1 point. This point came against Liverpool who is soon to be officially out of the top 4, so when looking at the top calibre clubs of Arsenal, Man United & Chelsea, Rovers have lost (6-2, 5-0, and 2-0) all their games quite convincingly. The only consolation is that all three encounters have been away and the Blackburn away form is dire compared to his great home one. On Sunday they will be eager to beat Chelsea and further dent their title push and I think they will certainly cause the West Londoners some problems.

Team news is that Rovers have been rocked by the news that England International Robinson is out for around a month following his calf injury at Tottenham, this will mean Jason Brown gets the nod on Sunday. Other than that the same players absent from last week remain out, Grella, Jacobson and Nelsen, all defensive players with Nelsen the most important. The New Zealander is massive presence at the back and although Givet and Samba are having good yeas Rovers will certainly miss Nelsen’s man marking particularly on the dangerous Drogab.

Predicted Blackburn Rovers Lineup :
Brown, Salgado, Samba, Givet, Chimbonda; Nzonzi, Pedersen, Dunn, Emerton, Olsson; Kalinic.

Chelsea

Last 5 Chelsea Away Games : W2-D2-L1 F6-A4

Following a poor performance midweek against Inter, Chelsea now find themselves gunning for 2 trophies and not 3. The Blues were eliminated from the Champions League on Tuesday night and are also dislodged from the top of the Premiership, the season can crumble very shortly unless Ancelotti gets his side back to winning ways and this starts away at Blackburn in the late kick off.

I’m boldly predicting that come 4pm on Sunday, Chelsea will be in third and not second as Arsenal will be playing a day before them. Now, this to many may not be an issue but I think the pressure cooker at Chelsea is reaching a very high and dangerous level and this club does not need even more bad news ahead of their game. Yes they are professionals and know a win will keep them in the title race but given how vulnerable this team is right now we may see some heads drop as they did on Tuesday if things don’t go Chelsea’s way.

Looking at the stats we can see that Chelsea are currently sharing second place in the last 5 away form table with 8 points, only bettered by Arsenal (10 points). Now that stat shocks me more than the Blackburn home from discussed above, I watch Chelsea very closely and they have been really poor lately so to see so many points does not seem right.

Well the table never lies and in the last 5 away games, the Blues have beat Wolves and Burnley (2-0 & 2-1), drawn at Hull and Birmingham (1-1 & 0-0) whilst losing 2-1 at Goodison to Everton despite taking the lead in that one. When looking at them games only Everton for me is a tricky game, Birmingham to be fair were on an unbeaten run when they faced Chelsea but to have dropped points at Hull is shocking whilst losing to Everton is still not great for a potential title winning side.

A stat that concerns many Chelsea backers is that despite this “low-ish” level of opponent the Blues have still managed to concede 4 goals in 5 games which is obviously nearly a goal a game. If you need to score 2 goals a game to even have a chance of winning on the road you are no way going to win a lot of games. Chelsea do have a decent record of scoring more than 1 goal in 21 of their 29 games played of which they have won 19 but of these 21 games only 7 are from games on the road. We have seen how many goals Blackburn are giving up lately, not many is the answer and with Chelsea needing two or more goals to get 3 points these days in away games then it could be a long frustrating day for the Londoners.

Team news is that Essien, Boswinga and (Ash) Cole remain out for some time but both keepers are now doubtful instead of “out.” Rumour has is that Cech is ready to return to the side but we wont know until Ancelotti’s press conference on Friday, my gut feel is that he will start. We may also see changes following the mid week Champions League tie with Carvalho starting ahead of Alex whilst Belletti, Cole (Joe) and Kalou are all pushing for starts. Again keep an eye out for the team news but I think Chelsea must go with their best available side at the moment and for that is:

Predicted Chelsea Lineup :
Cech, Ivanovic, Carvalho, Terry, Zhirkov; Mikel, Ballack, Lampard, Malouda, Anelka; Drogba.

The Betting Verdict :

Scandle off the field, important players injured on it, a dire display midweek followed by Champions League exit and now an away game to a side unbeaten in 5 at home on a potential wet and miserable Sunday afternoon.

It’s got bad day at the office written all over this for me.

I think that the Blackburn fans will go home happy and Chelsea fans are left to wonder how their side have let things get so bad so quickly.

The Statistics :

The Pick :

Blackburn 1-1 Chelsea

PERCENTAGE ESTIMATE :

Blackburn 15% - Draw 25% - Chelsea 60%

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take the Draw at prices of 4.33+ (10/3)

HANDICAP BETTING :

The Blackburn +1 AH at 2.20 looks huge to me right now