Out of the Champions League, a new manager and a fixture against the English champions, this just sums up a week in Chelsea’s shoes. Rafa Benitez has become the 9th manager in just 8 years for Chelsea and the former Liverpool boss will want to hit the ground running when they host Fulham in midweek.
Fulham defender Brede Hangeland begins a three-match ban following his red card in the home defeat by Sunderland. Mahamadou Diarra and Chris Baird both return but Alex Kacaniklic, Bryan Ruiz, Kieran Richardson and Mickael Tavares are all out with hamstring injuries. For Chelsea, John Terry is set to miss out again with a knee injury, while Frank Lampard remains a doubt. Fernando Torres may return to the starting 11 and could be filled with confidence after performing so well under the management of Benitez at Liverpool. Before the weekends games, Chelsea sit in 3rd place and only 4 points behind the leaders while Fulham are slightly further down the table with 16 points from 12 games.
Head to head, in their past four games, they have all been draws, two goalless and the other two games finished one a piece. Although there is a trend in these previous games, that is not to say the game on Wednesday will have the same outcome, as everyone knows, the Premier League is so unpredictable!
