Top four chasing Chelsea face a difficult final day clash away to Aston Villa at Villa Park.
Villa will finish 11th no matter what they achieve here, whereas Chelsea know that victory would guarantee them a top four finish.
A draw or defeat would however leave Thomas Tuchel’s Blues needing at least one of Liverpool and Leicester to lose elsewhere, otherwise Chelsea will finish fifth and need to win next week’s Champions League Final to keep their place in Europe’s premier competition.
Team News
Villa have no fresh injury concerns to report after their midweek win at Tottenham, although Ross Barkley is ineligible to face his parent club.
Morgan Sanson (knee), Matty Cash (hamstring) and Trezeguet (knee) remains absent.
Chelsea could be without Kai Havertz who is struggling with a tight muscle ahead of joining the Germany squad for this summer’s Euros, which caused him to miss Tuesday’s home win over Leicester.
N’Golo Kante (hamstring) is also a doubt as he prepares to represent France this summer, meaning that both Havertz and Kante could be handed late fitness tests pre-match.
Andreas Christiansen is back in contention after recovering from a thigh injury which has kept him out of Chelsea’s last three matches.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa have avoided defeat in just one of their last seven league meetings against Chelsea (D1, L6).
- Chelsea have dropped just four points in their last seven trips to Villa Park (W5, D1, L1).
- Olivier Giroud has scored on each of his last two Chelsea appearances against Villa (W1, D1).
- Ollie Watkins is set to be Villa’s highest goalscorer in the top flight since Christian Benteke scored 19 goals in 2012-13 season.
- Chelsea are yet to score from a free-kick this season.
Prediction
Defending seems to be Villa’s issue at the minute because their defensive quality in three of their last four games has been inconsistent, yet they have been excellent when on the attack in terms of creativity and especially punishing errors like they did in their last two games.
Chelsea meanwhile have end product issues at present despite strong attacking play so were lucky to seal their midweek win via a penalty, otherwise they would be the team in the last chance saloon bar in this top four battle instead of Leicester coming into this final round of fixtures.
Both teams though really do need to raise their game for different reasons and Chelsea will not just be playing Villa but also the home crowd, which could have a positive impact as seen in midweek and I can see a surprise draw coming here given the quality of both teams.
Prediction; Aston Villa 1-1 Chelsea
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