Chelsea returned to winning ways by beating West Bromwich away, with the Blues now hoping to put an extra pressure on Manchester United and Arsenal with three points from this clash. Having virtually ensured survival with a win over Sunderland, Brum enter this match without any pressure.

Are Chelsea back to the title race?

This season have shown that Chelsea don’t have a team capable of matching the best sides in England and Europe, so it is little wonder everybody is talking about a major squad overhaul in the summer. There are numerous reasons for team’s struggles this season, but the fact that key players like Lampard, Drogba, Cech and Cole are well past their prime cannot be overlooked. The lack of creativity in midfield is also more than evident with most of the midfielders in the squad unable to play those killer balls to strikers, so Fernando Torres is clearly not the only one to blame for his poor start of the career in Chelsea shirt. After four games in which the Blues couldn’t score more than one goal, they finally bagged three against West Bromwich last weekend, but that only happened because the Baggies opened up and that is something Birmingham are highly unlikely to do at Stamford Bridge. All things considered, Chelsea will have problems breaking very good defensive side that is Brum.

Ramires and Alex continue to miss out, while Branislav Ivanovic is a major doubt with a muscle injury.

Brum escaped the danger zone

Birmingham managed to recover from the very poor start of the season and Alex McLeish’s side really upped their game in the second part of the league campaign, but the Blues needed quite some time to escape the danger zone. Their impressive Carling Cup campaign that ended with the trophy proved that Brum boast a very good squad this season, but up until recently, Alex McLeish and his players couldn’t relax as they were involved in the relegation struggle. Nevertheless, victories over Bolton and Sunderland, as well as one point from Blackburn saw Brum climb to 14th place in the standings, meaning that the players can finally relax as Birmingham will stay five points clear of the bottom three even if they lose at Stamford Bridge. However, we can still expect battling Brimingham to give Chelsea a real value for their money and there is no doubt we will see a very tight game.

Scott Dann, Martin Jiranek, Obafemi Martins, James McFadden, Enric Valles and Nikola Zigic are still in the infirmary, but Jean Beausejour is available after recovering from a hamstring injury.

Verdict

Chelsea have been struggling in their build-up play throughout the season and there is no doubt they will face a difficult task against defence-minded Birmingham, especially as the visitors are high on confidence and under no pressure at the moment. Therefore, I expect a very tight game with chances few and far between.

Our prediction: Under 3 goals

Odds: 2.00 (1/1)

Bookmaker: 188BET