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"Chelsea" - "Manchester United"
Tournament: English Premier League
Stadium: "Stamford Bridge", London
Referee: Phil Dowd
Date and time: 2013-01-19, 18:00
In these matches, Jose Mourinho can secure his 100th victory in the Premier League. So far, only five managers have reached this milestone: Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, David Moyes, Rafael Benitez, and Gerard Houllier.
At "Stamford Bridge" stadium, "Chelsea" will host the title defending "Manchester United" club, but the current national champions are lagging behind the "aristocrats" by 9 points and are currently in 7th place in the league table. The first match between the teams this season ended in a draw.
In recent times, J. Mourinho's players have been showing impressive form: in the last six Premier League matches, "Chelsea" only dropped points in the London derby against "Arsenal." The team, occupying the third place in the national championship, also progressed to the next stage of the FA Cup by overcoming the resistance of the "Derby" team.
In these matches, Branislav Ivanovic and Marco Van Ginkel will be unable to help the team due to injuries, but Frank Lampard, who has trained at full strength all week, will be able to take the field. Meanwhile, Nemanja Matic, who has returned to the club, will have the opportunity to debut for the second time.
W. Rooney will not have the chance to score the goal himself (AP photo). For "Manchester United" manager David Moyes, this will be one of the toughest challenges at the helm of the "Red Devils" team. The coach, whose expectations of the fans are not yet justified due to the unsatisfactory results of the team from the start of his work in Manchester, is under a lot of pressure.
Lately, the team has been performing quite well in the Premier League - they have won 5 out of 6 matches, but lost to direct rivals, "Tottenham" players.
The team has performed poorly in other tournaments. D. Moyes' players were eliminated from the FA Cup at home by "Swansea City" players, and also lost to "Sunderland" in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final.
Due to injury, forwards Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, defenders Marouane Fellaini, Nani and Ashley Young, as well as defender Fabio, are definitely not going to be on the field at Stamford Bridge.
"My 100th victory will be achieved sooner or later. Whether it will happen in the match against "Man Utd" or against "West Ham," or later - I don't know. We will try to do it against "United" because we play two matches in a row at home after two away, so we want to collect all 6 points," - J. Mourinho said before the match.
"But "United" is "United." 11 (14 - editor's note) points behind the leaders is quite a lot, but I think they will manage to reduce this gap. The main task for all the big clubs at the moment is to secure a place in the top four, as it will be very difficult to do it later," - the Portuguese coach believed.
Predicted team line-ups:
"Chelsea": Cech; Azpilicueta, Cahill, Terry, Cole; David Luiz, Ramires, Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Torres.
"Man Utd": De Gea; Rafael, Evans, Vidic, Evra; Carrick, Fletcher, Valencia, Kagawa, Januzaj, Welbeck.
