Premier League leaders Chelsea visit Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, hoping to gain access to the FA Cup quarter-finals. The last direct meeting between the two sides was in 2012 in the League Cup and back then Chelsea secured a comfortable 6-0 victory. Wolves recorded the last win over Chelsea in 2011 at Molineux Stadium in a Premier League match.
Wolves produced one of the biggest upsets in the previous FA Cup round as they defeated Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield Road. Things have not gone too well after that for Paul Lambert and his men, they followed up with a 3-1 Championship win at Barnsley but then lost three matches in a row. The team that defeated Liverpool featured some players that are not usually present in the starting eleven and manager Paul Lambert might adopt the same strategy here.
Chelsea have not lost a match since January 4th, that's a run of seven matches unbeaten with five wins collected in the process. Last weekend they were held to a 1-1 draw at Burnley and that result might give Wolves some confidence and hopes for an upset. David Luiz has a knee injury and is expected to miss out, while John Terry has picked up a knock in training and will probably sit this one out.
Probable line-ups:
Wolves: Ikeme - Coady, Stearman, Hause, Doherty - Saville, Saiss - H. Costa, Edwards, Weimann - Dicko
Chelsea: Begovic - Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta - Pedro, Fabregas, Chalobah, Ake - Willian, Batshuayi, Loftus-Cheek
My prediction: Chelsea to win 2-1.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Wolves win - 9.00 Draw - 5.50 Chelsea win - 1.36
sharpe
7 years ago
But what a draw for the Wolves, Liverpool and then Chelsea next, at least that means decent TV incomes,for sure.
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sharpe
7 years ago
Obviously Wolves reserves doing better in the FA Cup than the starting 11 in Championship ;) Still nothing is certain in these games where PL teams starting with most of there substitute players, I think this a sad fact for the FA Cup but in the end most of the PL sides have wider and good squads so it's probably not...
Obviously Wolves reserves doing better in the FA Cup than the starting 11 in Championship ;) Still nothing is certain in these games where PL teams starting with most of there substitute players, I think this a sad fact for the FA Cup but in the end most of the PL sides have wider and good squads so it's probably not so bad thing in the end, we see that not only PL but even Championship sides doing that so the FA cup could have her own heroes which not shining in their particular Leagues. I think the surprise is possible here too, my prediction 2-2.
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