Chelsea v Bournemouth preview: Blues resume campaign against Cherries
While things look to be moving in the right direction behind the scenes for Chelsea, their momentum on the field had stalled significantly prior to the break. They started this round eighth in the Premier League (PL) having lost each of their last three competitive matches without scoring a single goal, following that up with a 1-0 warm-up defeat to Villa, making a new striker one of the priorities for Vivell.
First up for Chelsea though will be avoiding a fourth straight PL defeat, which would match their longest top-flight losing streak since March 1998.
Bournemouth finished the first part of their PL campaign on a high with an impressive 3-0 home win over Everton, ending a winless run of five PL fixtures, but their return to competition was soured by a 1-0 League Cup loss at Newcastle.
Manager Gary O’Neil was nonetheless happy with how “competitive” his team looked and might be quietly confident they can bounce back here as they’ve developed into a bogey team for Chelsea in recent years.
In fact, since the start of the 2015/16 campaign, only Liverpool and Manchester City have conquered the London side in more PL matches at Stamford Bridge than Bournemouth (three).
A better defensive display is likely to be key to securing another positive result in the capital, as prior to this round the Cherries had the unwanted tag of being the side to have conceded the most PL goals this season (32), whilst they’re also one of just two PL sides yet to secure an away league clean sheet.
Players to watch: Against no other side has Chelsea's Raheem Sterling scored more league goals, boasting nine from his last nine H2H appearances. His attacking opponent Kieffer Moore has bagged three goals across his last four Cherries appearances, and has the best goal-per-shot ratio in the division ahead of the round (0.4).
Hot stat: Only two PL sides had scored fewer first-half PL goals than Chelsea (six) going into this round.
