At A Glance
Aston Villa and Chelsea go head-to-head in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Dean Smith’s team hit the road after picking up four points from two games at Villa Park, kickstarting their season after an opening day loss to Watford at Vicarage Road.
Danny Ings has been a major plus point in the Villans’ first three league games, scoring twice and picking up one assist.
Opponents Chelsea have made an unbeaten start to the campaign, including victory in the UEFA Super Cup final.
Thomas Tuchel’s side beat Crystal Palace (3-0) and Arsenal (0-2) before drawing 1-1 with Liverpool at Anfield last time out.
The Blues’ main man Romelu Lukaku has struck once in first two games since returning to the club this summer.
Standout Stats
Chelsea have lost just one of their last 16 home league games against Aston Villa (W11 D4), going down 3-1 in December 2011.
Aston Villa won their last Premier League meeting with Chelsea, winning 2-1 on the final day of last season. They’ve not won consecutive league games against the Blues since October 1993 under Ron Atkinson.
Since Thomas Tuchel’s first game in charge of Chelsea, only Manchester City (51) have won more Premier League points than the Blues (45 – W13 D6 L3). The Blues also have the meanest defence in that run (excluding the promoted sides) with just 14 goals conceded.
Aston Villa won three of their six Premier League games in London last season (D1 L2), as many victories as they’d managed in their previous 29 top-flight games in the capital (W3 D4 L22).
Only Manchester City (1.4) have a lower xG against figure than Aston Villa (2.3) in the Premier League this season, though that means the Villans have conceded around two goals more than would be expected based on the quality of chances they’ve faced.
Two of Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel’s three Premier League defeats have been in home games, with the other coming away against Aston Villa. The last Chelsea boss to lose consecutive league games against the Villans was Bobby Campbell in 1990.
Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku has scored in each of his last five Premier League appearances against Aston Villa, netting six goals in total in this run. The Belgian is looking for his first top-flight goal at Stamford Bridge, in what would be his 11th appearance at the ground in the competition.
Danny Ings has been involved in eight goals in his last nine Premier League starts (6 goals, 2 assists), registering a goal involvement in all three of his appearances for Aston Villa so far (2 goals, 1 assist).
The Last Meeting
Aston Villa beat Chelsea on the final day of the 2020/21 Premier League season to celebrate the return of supporters inside Villa Park.
10,000 fans saw Bertrand Traore open the scoring against his old club before Anwar El Ghazi netted from the penalty spot.
Ben Chilwell pulled one back for the Blues, who had Cesar Azpilicueta sent-off late on.
Team News
Smith has Leon Bailey, John McGinn and Jacob Ramsey available for selection again after the trio missed their last league outing.
Bertrand Traore is back in training, while youngsters Carney Chukwuemeka and Jaden Philogene-Bidace join Keinan Davis on the sidelines.
Emiliano Martinez and Emiliano Buendia are unavailable after international duty.
Tuchel confirmed on Friday that Christian Pulisic and N’Golo Kante are out of the game, while Reece James is suspended.
His only other concern is Thiago Silva, who has been banned for five days by FIFA after he didn’t travel to meet up with the Brazil squad during the international break.
The Boss
“They’re Champions League winners, a fantastic team with a fantastic coach. You can see from the start they’ve had that’s it’s going to be a very tough game. We’ll go in full of respect for them, but we certainly won’t fear them. We beat them in the last game of last season, but Chelsea had an awful lot of chances in that game. We’ll have to be better than we were if we want to get something out of this game.”
Dean Smith
