Chelsea face Stoke City in the late kick-off on Saturday in the Barclays Premier League. As Jose Mourinho serves his 1 match stadium ban (which he declined to appeal), his Chelsea side will be looking to avenge their loss to Stoke in the Capital One Cup from last week in which the Blues were the much better side but could not convert their chances leading to their ultimate exit from the competition on penalties.

Unfortunately for the club and for the player himself as the Daily Star reports, Falcao will miss the trip to Stoke with a muscular injury he sustained in training which also caused the Colombian hitman to miss the Champions League game with Dynamo Kiev and will keep him out for a few weeks. When the striker will actually get some luck on his side remains to be seen but we are certainly pulling for the luckless forward. Thibaut Courtois remains sidelined with his knee injury for the foreseeable future but the good news is that Serbian rock, Branislav Ivanovic has recovered from his hamstring strain and is available to be included in the match day squad.

Since it is Stoke City away, Jose Mourinho will probably stick with Diego Costa upfront resisting the temptation to give Loic Remy a start against a team he traditionally does well against and we see the manager using a virtually unchanged side from the line-up that beat Kiev except he will insert Ivanovic in place of Baba Rahman at right back. If you want to have a bet on Chelsea this weekend then why not try out the sports betting at Ladbrokes.

So we think the probable starting XI is…

——————-Begovic——————

–Ivanovic—Terry—–Zouma—Azpilicueta–

——–Matic—————-Ramires——–

—-Willian——-Fabregas——-Oscar——

——————-Costa——————–