Next Friday, 26th of December 2014, the all-powerful José Mourinho’s Chelsea will measure forces with a surprising West Ham on a Boxing Day London Derby at Stamford Bridge for round 18 of the English Premier League, a match that will bring two of the most interesting and intense teams of the EPL at the moment head-to-head and that none of them want to lose.

The defeat against Newcastle earlier this month didn’t open any breaches on Chelsea’s strong fortress and it maybe only served for them to get even more focused on their final goals. Last Monday’s night, the Blues granted a very important win at Britannia Stadium over a Stoke City that tends to be a very complicated team when playing at home. Chelsea won by 2-0 but the match was far from easy and it was in fact a very even one. Nevertheless, the immense talent of Eden Hazard and Cesc Fàbregas and the safe hands of Thibaut Courtois helped the Blues leave Stoke-on-Trent with the three points.

The “new” José Mourinho’s Chelsea is a far different team from the one we all observed last season. The arrival of Cesc Fàbregas gave the team’s midfield with a quality playmaker they missed last campaign and, at the same time, offered Chelsea’s game a completely different depth and efficiency. The Spanish deep-lying playmaker appears to be rejuvenated and seems twice as capable than he was while at Barcelona during the previous seasons.

The match against West Ham is of capital importance for the Blues, who cannot allow any more slip-ups if they want to maintain their place at the top of the EPL table. For that particular clash, José Mourinho will have all his players at his disposal since there aren’t currently any names at the team’s injury list.

As for West Ham, the Hammers have been having a fantastic campaign so far this season and they currently are on a five-match row without a single defeat. Those who followed West Ham’s shaky career at EPL last term could not have certainly imagined that the Hammers would be on the top four at this stage of the season.

This rejuvenated West Ham is a very stone cold team that constantly tries to exploit the opponent’s mistakes in order to win their matches and that is precisely what they did against Leicester last weekend, especially for the first goal, when Andy Carroll used a poor back pass from Paul Konchesky to open the score.

Sam Allardyce is doing a fine job so far this term and it will certainly be interesting to see how far will the Hammers take this amazing season start.

Regardless of West Ham’s excellent moment, it is not very likely that they will be able to “bend” the all-powerful Chelsea on Boxing Day next Friday.

Chelsea

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

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West Ham

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

Recent Form - WDWWW

Possible Line-ups

Chelsea (4-3-3) – Courtois - Ivanovic - Terry - Cahill - Filipe Luis - Matic - Fàbregas - Óscar - Hazard - Willian - Diego Costa

West Ham (4-3-1-2) - Adrian - Jenkinson - Tomkins - Reid - Cresswell - Kouyate - Noble - Song - Downing - Sakho - Carroll

Prediction

Chelsea 2 West Ham 1