Aston Villa host Chelsea in one of four 7:30 kickoffs tonight in what could be regarded as a massive six-pointer as both clubs look to finish in one of the top 5 spots.
Chelsea currently sit 6th after losing to league leaders, Arsenal last time out, but can put their current position down to dropping a league-leading 19 points from winning positions so far this season.
Most recently as two weeks ago, when Chelsea drew 1-1 with a struggling Burnley side, after Wesley Fofana inexplicably became the sixth different Chelsea player to be sent off this season, before Pedro Neto made it the seventh against Arsenal on Sunday.
These are characteristics that have carried over from the Enzo Maresca era to Liam Rosenior’s early tenure in charge, but Rosenior is adamant that his team can’t keep sitting back and dropping their heads after striking first, saying, “When those white balls come out, you can’t make the mistakes we’ve been making because we’re running out of time”, after it was revealed that Rosenior was using match balls in training to prepare his team better.
This comes amid rumours that the board could consider the future of the 41-year-old if he fails to qualify for the Champions League, despite just signing a contract until 2032, but Rosenior assured the press that this should be the expectation for a Chelsea manager, emphasizing that, “A successful season for this club has to be qualified for the Champions League, it has to be.”
The Blues opponents tonight, Aston Villa, found themselves in a supposed title race at Christmas, but after picking up just one win in the month of February, find themselves looking over their shoulders at Liverpool and Chelsea.
Villa lost 2-0 to west-Midland rivals Wolves at Molineux on Friday night in what manager Unai Emery called, “a huge defeat.” Yet the Spaniard is optimistic that they can make the most of home advantage tonight, stating that, “In Villa Park, we are feeling, overall, really comfortable, playing, showing our form, consistency, except the last matches as we played. And, of course, we want to recover our good form at home.”
Four of Chelsea’s five most recent wins have come on the road across various competitions, so we will be optimistic coming into tonight as the fourth-best team in the division away from home.
Despite this, Villa have won four of the last six league meetings, including a 2-1 win in the reverse fixture when Ollie Watkins came off the bench to complete the comeback after Chelsea completely collapsed in the second -half of Maresca’s penultimate game at the helm.
Both teams come into the fixture with long injury lists, but for Villa, their engine room in the middle of the park has been tormented by injuries, with Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans and John McGinn all out for an extensive period.
When talking about captain John McGinn’s absence for tonight’s match, Unai Emery once more called for support from the fans as, “John McGinn is very important, but he is not available tomorrow… We need other leaders. We need change to singing about ‘Super Aston Villa’. We need our supporters. We need Villa Park.”
Chelsea will be without Pedro Neto after his first senior red card over the weekend, but despite Cole Palmer picking up a knock in that game, Rosenior was able to say that the English talisman will, “be absolutely fine to start on Wednesday.”
Marc Cucurella could make a return, but Rosenior didn’t dismiss Saturday as being a more realistic return date for the Spaniard. Both Romeo Lavia and Estevao were back in training but Jamie Gittens, Dario Essugo, Levi Colwill and Mykhaylo Mudryk all remain out.
The game will be officiated by Jarred Gillett and will be available to watch in the UK on TNT Sports 3 and Discovery + UK.
Written by : Tyreid Savage.
Sports Talk Online 
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