Chelsea v Watford Stamford Bridge 3 p.m. Saturday 26th December 2015 please log in to view this image The Opposition Chelsea F.C. are a professional football club in Fulham who were founded in 1905, the home ground since then has been Stamford Bridge. Chelsea had their first major success in 1955, when they won the league championship. They won various cup competitions between 1965 and 1990. The club's greatest period of success has been the last two decades, winning 17 major trophies since 1997. They have won 5 league titles, 7 FA Cups, 5 League Cups and 4 FA Community Shields, 1 UEFA Champions League, 2 UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, 1 UEFA Europa League and 1 UEFA Super Cup. Regular kit colours are royal blue shirts and shorts with white socks. The crest has been changed several times in attempts to rebrand the club and modernise its image. The current crest, featuring a ceremonial lion rampant regardant holding a staff is a modification of the one introduced in the early 1950s. The club have the fifth-highest average all-time attendance in English football. Their average home gate for the 2014–15 season was 41,546, the seventh highest in the Premier League. Since 2003, Chelsea have been owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.[10] In 2015, they were ranked by Forbes magazine as the sixth most valuable football club in the world, at £898 million The Manager Another club that decided they needed a new manager to face the mighty Watford !! Bye bye Jose Mourinho. please log in to view this image Guus Hiddink at 69 will be the third oldest manager in Premiership history after Bobby Robson and Alex Ferguson. He has managed 7 clubs (some more than once) in 5 countries as well a 5 national teams - Netherlands, South Korea, Australia, Russia and Turkey In his previous spell at Chelsea he was in charge for 22 games and won 16,drew 5 and lost only 1 We might be wishing the Special One was still there come Saturday evening. Unfortunately recent form is likely to go out of the window now. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Surprisingly our record against Chelsea is not quite as uneven as most may expect: 9 Watford victories to Chelsea's 13 and 4 draws. Chelsea edge the encounters at Stamford Bridge 6 to 4 please log in to view this image Full history is: In the Premiership we have won 1 and lost 3. In the old first division it was 4-2 in our favour with 2 draws. please log in to view this image The Man in the Middle Refereee on Saturday will be Andre Marriner with assistants L Betts and D Cann. Fourth official K Johnson Andre Marriner (44) was appointed as a Select Group referee in 2005 and has officiated in the Premier League ever since. His first Premier League appointment was in November 2004, when Charlton Athletic defeated Norwich City, and he was added to the Select Group for the following season. Andre Marriner was the referee for Watford's second home game of the season against Southampton, his first Premier League game of the season. The man from the West Midlands had a fairly tranquil campaign last season, as in his thirty-three games he only dismissed two players, despite making one-hundred and twenty five bookings. You have to go back to the 2009/10 Championship season to look at Marriner's previous Watford game in charge when the Hornets were defeated on their home soil by Coventry City but not a single card was produced. Betting Odds please log in to view this image
Suggestion is Chelsea will field a younger set of players - maybe with their game against Man U 2 days later in mind?
Of course. They are only playing Watford, after all. Or they are targettng games they think they can win.
Yes - two spells - the first one year 1999 - they went down as we came up - then they bounced back up for 7 years and got relegated with us with 34 points to our 28
All the best for the festive fixtures -come a long way since the cinder 'terraces and the visits of Rochdale and the like -pleased to see a new era being forged for the future -will be down for the Everton game, will also be going to a few north west away jaunts...........
Thanks for another great thread Leonardo! Hi rudeboy . 2 weeks ago of have felt massively confident about this game but Chelsea are back to playing like champions and the interim manager is in so will be wanting to impress. Head says nil point for us but heart says we can get at least a point. I hope heart wins. I'm saying 1-2! I won't be there, my annual boxing day commitment doesn't allow for it and I won't even be able to get to a stream or listen to a commentary so I will hopefully be sneaking a lot of peeks at this thread!
They have only played one game post 'needy one ' -a win against a poor Sunderland team, I'm sure that flores will provide a much sterner test........ In fact a Watford win is no longer considered outrageous shows how the ground has shifted this season -that thread with the so called experts predictions pre season makes great reading!
Thanks as always Leo - another cracking thread. My seasonal good will (which is usually pretty low anyway as I'm a misanthropic old git) will be running on empty come Saturday as I have a family dinner whilst the local pub is showing the game live. Sure it is only football and yes there are more important things in life but even so! Every Chelsea fan i know bar one thinks we're going to win - I tend to agree with Leo and others that Mourinho's ousting came a week or so too early. But - we are flying right now and one thing that seems to unite ourselves, Leciester and Palace is that we have confidence, self belief and discipline in bundles. Should be a very, very interesting 90 minutes.
The difference this season is that I know we COULD win - our team system and manager are no longer relegation likelys. I think we could lose this but like H my heart says we might sneak a draw.
Amazing times! These are the future good old days. It is like an eighties revival. I know that we can't win all our games, but I seem to be viewing every game as winnable. I will be disappointed if we can't beat Chelsea, but I agree with what has been written earlier, Jose's sacking came a week or two early. This one is very hard to call. If Chelsea play as a team and at a level that their players can achieve, it will be very difficult. If they play as they have been playing then if could be easy. Much depends on whether Jose was the cause of their problems, or just a symptom.
I've let somebody else have my tickets, my daughter is now giving me lots of grief! I told her that I should be spending the whole of Boxing Day with her mother only to find my wife was looking forward to getting shot of me for a few hours!! fancy that!!
Awesome thread Leo. Welcome Rudeboy (my late great uncle was a die hard Chelsea supporter). I hope that Flores has done his usual homework and come up with a game plan so at the very least we give the usual 100% and don't make it easy for Chelsea.
Welcome Watfordluv. We haven't had much problem with the bottom dwellers this season, but we thought we would beat Yeovil a couple of years ago.
Nice one Lenny 5*'s from me. I think this will be a tough game for us, with the Chelsea players having to put in a performance to save their tarnished reputations. But I am going for a 2-2 draw. I will not be attending, which is my first non-football Boxing Day for many a year - but with the tickets at £55 and no trains running from Bandit Country, I just could not drum up much enthusiasm to venture out. So will be having a few beers at home with an eye on this thread and SSN. Merry Xmas everyone.
