Chelsea face Hull City in the 4.30pm kick-off in the Premier League this Sunday as Chelsea have drawn a great fixture schedule allowing them an extra day to train and recover after their last match where they started a new winning streak in the Premier League with a 3-0 win over Leicester City last Saturday after losing to Spurs the previous Wednesday to end their 13 game record equalling one season winning streak.
TheLeicester match was of course in the headlines as after the Diego Costa “affair” with Antonio Conte, the Brazilian striker was dropped after Costa had fallen out with the training staff and/or Conte causing the striker to claim he was not happy playing in England. Since then the striker has been brought back into fold and all seems to be peaceful back at the Bridge – thankfully.
Recent form certainly suggests Chelsea have the upper-hand in this fixture as they have not lost in their last 9 Premier League encounters with Hull City, winning 7 games and drawing only 2 games while keeping an impressive 6 clean sheets over the course of those 9 games. In fact, Stephen Hunt was the last Hull player to score for the club vs Chelsea way back in August 2009 when they went ahead in the game before ultimately losing 2-1 in a tight game.
Diego Costa has a great record against Hull so you can certainly see him being restored to the starting line-up to play the Tigers as he has scored in all 3 of his most recent games while adding an impressive 2 assists. Eden Hazard is another Blue who has enjoyed himself vs Hull in recent times as in his last four Premier League matches against them he has scored 3 goals and added an assist. So you would expect these 2 with the in-form Pedro to be the men who get the goals against Marco Silva’s side.
Marco Silva has certainly had a positive impact on his new club as he won his 1st match in charge 2-0 in the FA Cup vs Swansea before losing to Man United in the first-leg of the EFL Cup semi-final 2-0 in a respectable performance against an in-form United team at Old Trafford and then in his 1st Premier League match he led Hull to an impressive 3-1 win over Eddie Howe’s solid Bournemouth side where striker Abel Hernandez netted a brace which is as many goals as he had scored in his previous 30 Premier League appearances. Hernandez scoring has to be a very good sign and should take some pressure of Robert Snodgrass who has been carrying Hull’s goal-scoring responsibilities almost single-handedly in recent times.
So despite still being favourites to go down Silva has certainly got Hull moving in the right direction and therefore this game for the Blues will not be a formality. However, given the extra day’s rest for Chelsea and the return of Costa and Hazard’s form vs Hull City we expect the Blues to continue with their new winning streak and to come out on top by a 3-1 scoreline with Hazard and Costa providing most of the headlines.