How Can Chelsea Defeat Stoke City?

Chelsea have started the holiday period with a record of four wins and, sadly, a loss to Newcastle. The loss to the Magpies was Chelsea’s first defeat in all competitions and gave Manchester City the opportunity to shorten the gap between first and second place. Now Chelsea are up against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium this upcoming Monday and will be looking to gain the three points required to stay afloat the Premier League ocean of teams not worthy of first place.

The last time that Chelsea played the Potters at the Britannia, Chelsea came away with a 3-2 loss and the first loss to Stoke since 1975. The two following games to Stoke ended in Chelsea wins with an aggregate score of 4-0, both games being played at Stamford Bridge. Mark Hughes’ team is currently in decent form considering they beat Arsenal at home and tied Crystal Palace away. Peter Crouch has also scored two goals in his past two games and seems to be entering good form as well. Furthermore, Stoke’s summer signing, Bojan, is finally starting to show why he was once deemed to be the ‘next Messi’.

On Saturday, City managed to beat Crystal Palace 3-0 after an excellent display from David Silva and Co. With that win both Chelsea and City are tied on points with Chelsea being a game behind. To get those three points from Stoke the mighty Blues will need to be focused and well rested when they arrive at the Britannia. Now that Mourinho has declared that it seems that all players will be fit for the match on Monday, how can Chelsea break down this Stoke defense that only seems to hold up when Mourinho’s team plays them at their home ground?

1) Kurt Zouma over Gary Cahill

On Friday the 19th Mourinho declared that he expects Zouma to be fit for the upcoming fixture via Chelsea’s official Twitter account

If Zouma really is fit then he definitely should play. Cahill has been poor recently and Zouma has shown not only Mourinho, but the fans as well that for now he is a better option that the Englishman. Cahill has been sloppy going into tackles and careless in his positioning. The former Bolton Wanderer could have cost Chelsea a red card after his reckless tackle against the Hull City striker, Sone Aluko. He was also lucky to not get booked for diving after already being shown a yellow for the aforementioned tackle. Cahill is a liability at the moment and Mourinho might feel forced to bench him to demonstrate to Cahill that his spot is not guaranteed. Not to mention that Zouma also compensates for Terry’s lack of speed, as does Cahill, except that Zouma is also very strong in the air. Zouma’s aerial strength will be needed to prevent Crouch from heading the ball into the back of the net if Branislav Ivanovic, Cesar Azpilicueta, or Filipe Luis are unable to prevent the crosses to him in the first place.

2) Play Ramires alongside Nemanja Matic

If Chelsea are to beat Stoke then they must control the midfield and prevent Stoke from scoring on the counter after Chelsea lose the ball after being in the opponents half for 15 minutes. Ramires is of course an improvement from Mikel in the defensive midfield and with Ramires as a CDM then Fabregas could be put in as the number 10 with Oscar on the bench to come on as an impact sub. Ramires is a tireless runner and a great box-to-box midfielder. He has been injured recently, but the whole squad has been declared fit and during the Holiday period Ramires coming back from injury will be like signing a new player. The Brazilian could neutralize the pacey attack that consists of Diouf, Bojan, and N’Zonzi whilst also hopefully contributing to the attack as well, unlike Mikel.

3) Come out swinging

If Chelsea want to win this game then the minute that Neil Swarbrick blows the whistle to start the match the Blues have to go all out. Attack relentlessly from the start of the game without giving away anything defensively. The Blues need to take shots and pressure the Potters until they break down from the start of the match. If they can’t do that then this match could easily end in a draw or even a loss if Chelsea allow Stoke time to organize defensively after every attack like they allowed Newcastle.

Chelsea are indeed the favourites for this match, but if Chelsea cannot break Hughes’ team down then the milk could indeed go stale for Mourinho.

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