Next Saturday, 13th of December 2014, José Mourinho’s Chelsea will measure forces with a Hull City in need of points at Stamford Bridge for round 16 of the English Premier League, on a match where the Blues will surely look to return to the good results after their unexpected defeat at St James’ Park last weekend.

Chelsea’s last Saturday’s defeat at the hands of Newcastle was a total surprise for supporters and pundits alike. The Magpies have been fairly inconsistent so far this season but they managed to found the way to overcome a super strong Chelsea, mostly relying on quick and almost deadly counter-attacks and on the opponents defensive mistakes. The Blues didn’t have the best of performances against Newcastle but, taking a closer look at the match statistics, one can easily understand that the London team was in control throughout the entire match but for some reason failed to materialize most of their goal chances. José Mourinho was clearly disappointed with his team’s defeat but he assured that Chelsea will bounce back immediately as they did last Wednesday’s night against Sporting CP for the UEFA Champions League. The Blues, who had already granted a place on the next stage of the competition before the match, kicked the Portuguese side out of the tournament by smashing them with a 3-1 solid win.

Next Saturday’s clash against Hull will certainly pose a good opportunity for the team to return to wins, given the current fragile situation of their opponents. For that particular match, José Mourinho will be have all his players at his disposal, since there aren’t currently any names at the team’s injury list.

As for Hull, the Tigers are, in fact, going through a very complicated period as they’ve failed to win any of their last eight matches. After a last minute home defeat against the Spurs and after being smashed at Old Trafford, Hull managed to grant two consecutive draws first at Goodison Park against Everton and last weekend at home with West Brom. Steve Bruce’s boys will certainly travel to London with the intention of causing Chelsea a major upset, but they will need to be utterly inspired in order to perform such deed.

It is more than fair to name Chelsea as firm favourites for Stamford Bridge’s match next Saturday, given the fact that they are probably the strongest team at the EPL at the moment.

Chelsea

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-1

Recent Form - WLWDW

Hull City

Stats: W-0 L-3 D-2

Recent Form - DDLLL

Possible Line-ups

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

Hull City (3-5-2) – McGregor - Elmohamady - Dawson - Chester - Robertson - Livermore - Huddlestone - Brady - Ben Arfa - Hernandez - Jelavic

Prediction

Chelsea 2 Hull City 0