Next Saturday, 30th of August 2014, José Mourinho’s “new” Chelsea will travel to Goodison Park to measure forces with Everton for the third round of the English Premier League.

After a fairly positive and confident start against Burnley for the season opener, Chelsea experienced some unexpected difficulties to overcome a mighty Leicester side who caused some anxiety among the home side supporters with a vibrant display during the first-half.

José Mourinho, however, managed to rally his troops during the break and Chelsea looked reinvigorated for the second-half. The home side attacking game flow became more and more intense and on the 62nd minute of the match the Summer signing, Diego Costa, netted in his team’s first goal adding to his personal tab his first official goal at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea became more confident and despite the almost vintage performance by Kasper Schmeichel, the Blues managed to grab their second goal thanks to a fantastic effort by the Belgian wonderkid Eden Hazard on the 77th minute.

José Mourinho is certainly aware of the difficulties he will find at Goodison Park next Saturday, especially after last season’s defeat, and he is most surely happy to have all his players at his disposal for such a demanding clash.

As for the home side Everton, which almost created a major upset to the Community Shield winners, Arsenal, last weekend, the match against Chelsea will present a good opportunity for them to make a stand and claim their first win of the season.

Roberto Martinez’s boys seemed to have everything in their favour to give Arsenal their first reality check of the season as they entered the last ten minutes of the match winning by 2-0. Nevertheless, Arsenal never threw in the towel and managed to scored twice in the dying moments of the match thus claiming a draw that, given the circumstances, may very well taste like a victory.

For the match against the Blues next weekend, Roberto Martínez will not be able to rely on the contribution of Kone, Ross Barkley and Bryan Oviedo, all of them sidelined due to injury.

When both sides met at Goodison Park last season, the home side granted a 1-0 win thanks to a goal by Naismith in the first-half of the match. Despite Everton’s strength when playing at home, Chelsea are to be considered favourites for the next Saturday’s match as they look a bit more consistent than their opponents at the moment.

Everton

Stats: W-0 L-2 D-3

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Chelsea

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

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Possible Line-ups

Everton (4-3-3) – Howard - Coleman - Distin - Jagielka - Baines - Barry - Mirallas - Naismith - Osman - McGeady - Lukaku

Chelsea (4-2-3-1) – Cech - Ivanovic - Terry - Cahill - Azpilicueta - Matic - Fàbregas - Hazard - Ramires - Oscar - Diego Costa

Prediction

Everton 1 Chelsea 2