Chelsea vs Watford Preview, Team News, Likely Line-Up, Prediction & Betting Tips

Chelsea will kick off their FA Cup campaign when they take on Watford at Stamford Bridge in the third round on Sunday afternoon.

The Blues have relinquished a seven point lead at the top of the Premier League table and are now only ahead of Manchester City on alphabetical order.

The latest slip up came away at Tottenham on Thursday that saw the West Londoners concede five goals for the first time during Jose Mourinho’s time in charge as they slumped to a 5-3 defeat.

Their stuttering league form has quelled talk of a historic quadruple for now but Chelsea will no doubt be desperate to get back to winning ways and avoid an upset against promotion-chasing Championship outfit Watford this weekend.

Team News

Mourinho has no fresh injury concerns but is expected to rotate his team and give some of his key men a rest after a gruelling festive period.

Petr Cech is likely to start in goal in place of Thibaut Courtois while Filipe Luis should come into the defence with Branislav Ivanovic dropping out.

Kurt Zouma is also expected to start alongside John Terry at the back with Gary Cahill given a breather while John Obi Mikel should start in midfield with Cesc Fabregas pushed further forward into the attack.

This would allow Eden Hazard and Oscar to be rested with Andre Schurrle and Ramires among the players who could come in while Didier Drogba could replace Diego Costa up front.

As for Watford, they will be without midfielder Adlene Guedioura after he returned to Crystal Palace at the end of his loan spell while centre-back Sebastien Bassong is ineligible to feature under the terms of his loan deal from Norwich.

Joel Ekstrand and Gabriel Tamas are still on the sidelines, but strikers Troy Deeney and Matej Vydra could return to the starting eleven.

Likely Line-Up

Predicted Score

Chelsea 3-0 Watford: The Blues will still be hurting from their disappointing loss at White Hart Lane and although I expect a number of changes to be made, I still think they’ll have too much for Watford to handle.

Betting Tips

Chelsea are the heavy favourites tomorrow with best odds of just 2/11 – which won’t attract the attention of many punters. However, if we bet on the exact score of 3-0 then we get more appealing odds of 7/1 while I also like the look of Schurrle to open the scoring at  9/2. If we combine those two bets in a scorecast, then we get very tempting odds of 22/1. Surely that’s got to be worth a couple of quid!?

BACK CHELSEA TO WIN 3-0 AT BETFAIR AT ODDS OF 7/1

What team would you like to see start and whats your predicted score for the game?