Sunderland – Chelsea

The last placed team in the Premier League, Sunderland, will play host to league leaders Chelsea in this midweek Premier League round.

After a horrific start to the season Sunderland had a stretch of good games recently under David Moyes, winning 3 out of 4, but all the momentum ended last weekend when the Black Cats were shattered 0-3 by relegation rivals Swansea. It was a very poor performance from Sunderland, which saw them return to the last place in the standings and confidence is not high ahead of this match against the league leaders.

Chelsea is on the back of a 1-0 win against West Brom, their 9th consecutive victory in the Premier League and the 7th match out of their last 9 in which they kept a clean sheet. After Arsenal’s defeat on Tuesday, Chelsea can now go 6 points clear of the second place with a win, so they will be obviously extra motivated to get the result. It should be within their grasp, but the bookies set the odds accordingly at just 1.25 for a Chelsea win.

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Team news & lineups:

Ndong is suspended for Sunderland, while McNair, Gooch, Cattermole, Watmore and Rodwell are injures. Chelsea does not have any new injury concerns, but Terry is still out, while Van Ginkel, Zouma, Oscar and Obi Mikel are heavy doubts. Antonio Conte suggested that he might rotate the squad a bit, with the likes of Pedro or Matic possibly being dropped.

Sunderland: Pickford – Jones, Kone, Djilobodji, Aanholt – Larsson, Pienaar, Denayer, Kirchhoff – Anichebe – Defoe

Chelsea: Courtois – Azpilicueta, Cahill, Luiz – Moses, Kante, Fabregas (Matic), Alonso – Willian, Costa, Hazard

Nobody has scored less goals than Sunderland this season, but no less than 4 clubs conceded more goals, which is a decent stat for a club placed at the bottom of the table. Expect Sunderland to park the bus here, no questions asked and hope to maintain a 0-0 score for as long as possible, maybe hit on counters with the pace of Anichebe and Defoe.

Chelsea does not score a lot on the road (12 goals compared to 21 at home) and if they use a bit of rotation, they could be just a little bit rusty. Chelsea should win, but a price of 1.35 away from home is very low. This is, after all, the Premier League and all in all Sunderland still won 3 out of their last 5 games.

Chelsea allowed 2 goals in the last 9 Premier League outings, so it`s difficult to see Sunderland scoring here, but on the other hand I don`t think Chelsea will bang in more than two against a team that will defend for their lives. I can see a 1-0 or 2-0 victory for Chelsea and my tip is under 3 goals to be scored. Prediction: Sunderland – Chelsea 0-2.

Pick: under 3 goals
Odds: 1.84 @ Slbet
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 5.88
Event date: 14 December