Chelsea are off to a very impressive and quite surprising start under new manager Maurizio Sarri. They host Cardiff City this weekend, and head into the match level on points with league leaders Liverpool, but in second place because they are a single goal behind the Reds in goal differential.
They are not being talked about a whole lot as primary league title contenders, and that suits Blues superstar Eden Hazard just fine. The Belgian forward is totally kosher with his side being sleepers, or dark horses in the title race.
Cardiff City comes into this one in 16th place, just two slots above the relegation zone. However, they have played a lot better than that sentence sounds. The Bluebirds have kept two clean sheets and were been beaten by just one goal in another of their four matches thus far.
Chelsea doesn’t have any major injures to worry about in this one. For Cardiff City, they could see Aron Gunnarsson and Josh Murphy return from injury and feature in this one, but Nathaniel Mendez-Laing remains sidelined long term.
He may not be action until around the festive period.
Chelsea Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Kick-off: 3 pm (BST), Saturday 15 Sept
Odds via Odds Checker: Chelsea 1/5, Draw 7/1, Cardiff City 20/1
Prediction: Chelsea FC 2, Cardiff City 1
Feel free to post your own Chelsea and/or Cardiff starting XI predictions, as well as your best guess as to what the final score will be. Enjoy the match everybody!
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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