Ezri Konsa is hoping for a repeat of last season’s Villa Park victory against Chelsea when the Blues come to town on Boxing Day.
Goals from Bertrand Traore and Anwar El Ghazi fired the hosts to a 2-1 win back in May, and the sides are set to do battle for the third time this season on Sunday.
Konsa is keen to take advantage of a Chelsea team that have slipped off the pace at the top of the Premier League in recent weeks, winning two of their last five matches.
He said: “We know Chelsea haven’t been doing too well and they haven’t got the results they’ve wanted. We’ll look at that, see where we can hurt them and look to get the three points.
“They’re a top side – everyone knows that. They’re in the top three and fighting to win the Premier League, so we know they’ve got a lot of good players.
“But so do we, and last season when they came to Villa Park, we beat them 2-1. We’re looking forward to it.”
The game against Thomas Tuchel’s team starts a run of three matches in seven days, with trips to Leeds United and Brentford following hot on the heels.
Squads up and down the league have been impacted by COVID, and Konsa hopes Villa can come through this spell unscathed.
He said: “We’ve had this before when we had the COVID outbreak last season and we all had to take ten days off. We’re dealing with it well and everyone’s happy.
“Everyone knows that Christmas is always a busy period. There are a lot of games and it’s all about staying fit.
“We all want to play games and I’ve been doing it for quite a few years now, so I’m used to it and all the boys are used to it as well.”
