English Premier League: Match Preview - Chelsea vs West Bromwich Albion
Chelsea are scheduled to take on West Bromwich Albion in the last game of the opening day of the Barclay's English Premier League. Both teams will be raring to go. Chelsea are the current Premier League Champions, whereas West Brom are amongst the teams that got promoted to the Premier League, hence they will be looking to prove to the rest of the League that they aren't pushovers.
Chelsea have suffered a series of injuries to their starting eleven. However, to the team and fans’ delight, almost all the injured players seem to have recovered just in time for the match. The Blues’ talismanic midfielder Frank Lampard was scheduled to miss the opening game, due to an ankle injury that the player picked up in England's international friendly with Hungary on Wednesday night. England won that game with a score-line of two goals to one, and even though Lampard wasn't on the score sheet, he was still an integral part of the squad. He passed a late medical today morning which cleared him to participate in the match. Carlo Ancelotti gave the fans some more good news: with long term injury doubts, Petr Cech and Alex both being cleared of their fitness tests and making them ready to return to the Stamford Bridge. The Blues will be looking to open the season in the same style with which they ended it.
West Brom, on the other hand, have star midfielder Graham Dorrans fighting against time to be fit in time for the match. Dorrans underwent treatment for a groin injury that he suffered earlier this month. His groin injury even forced him out of the international friendly that Scotland played against Sweden. He has, however, managed to return to training and it would be interesting to see if he is fit in time for one of the biggest games of his life. West Brom's manager, Roberto Di Matteo, is optimistic about the midfielder’s fitness. He is also set to hand debut starts to Nicky Shorey and Pablo Ibanez. He has chosen Scott Corson to skipper the team and hopes the player will lead the team to do the unthinkable.
Some match facts going into the game are:
Chelsea have won the last eight opening games that they have played. They have also managed to win ten of their last eleven games.
The last team to have beaten Chelsea on the opening day of the Premier League were Coventry, who beat them in 1998.
The last four times that West Brom qualified for the Premier League, they failed to win a single one of their opening day matches. They also managed to score a total of one goal is all those matches.
Chelsea have beaten West Brom on all the eight occasions that they faced the team previously. They have conceded only two goals to the team.
Chelsea conceded the highest number of goals from set pieces last season.
Frank Lampard was the leading assist giver last season, with a total of fourteen assists to his name.
Frank Lampard scored twenty two goals last season. That made him the first midfielder to score more than twenty goals in the Premier League since it was initiated.
Chelsea were the first team in the English Premier League’s history to score more than a 100 goals in the top flight, a record that hadn't been achieved since Tottenham set it way back in the 1962-1963 season.
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