The Premier League weekend kicks off on Friday night this week when two sides who will be very familiar to each other meet when Brighton and Hove Albion welcome Chelsea to the Amex Stadium for the second time in six days.
These two met in an entertaining FA Cup tie last weekend where Brighton came out on top so the Blues will be heading to Sussex looking for some revenge, while the Seagulls will be hoping to double down on that result.
Where to watch
The match will be shown as part of the Friday Night Football programme which will be on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League channels. The show begins at 7pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Brighton and Hove Albion
Brighton and Hove Albion have been one of the trickier sides to read in the Premier League this term. Just when you think they have cracked it and are going on a run of good form they throw in a stinker of a couple of weeks and when things are looking bleak they come out with a result which seemed unlikely. They will be aiming for a win here after two pretty tame defeats, the latter which turned into an absolute hiding away to Nottingham Forest.
Brighton have really struggled to win matches at home this term. In the Premier League, they have come out on top in just three of their 11 outings and while there was an air of this campaign being a transition one when the chief executive was interviewed ahead of the cup-tie last weekend, they will still want to impress a little more than that in front of their fans. A win here would consolidate their top half position and if they can find a decent final third of the season they could still push for European football.
Chelsea
It has been a bit of a strange campaign for Chelsea as well. They began it being competitive and then really caught fire approaching Christmas when there was talk about them being potential title challengers. Things have fallen apart a bit since then but they have won two of their last three in the league to maintain a top four spot, which is all they have to play for now, and a win here would certainly bolster their position ahead of the other matches this weekend.
Overall, Chelsea have been decent enough on their travels this season. They are 6-3-3 in total in the Premier League but they are without a win in their last four trips away from Stamford Bridge and also lost the cup game here last week. That run includes drawing at Everton and losing at Ipswich which doesn’t bode well so the Blues will be looking for a convincing showing as well as a result and if they get that they should have enough quality to win the match.
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Team News
Brighton captain Lewis Dunk is a doubt for this match and will be a game time decision while the Seagulls will definitely be without Pervis Estupinan, James Milner and Solly March. They could have Mats Wieffer back though.
Chelsea are going to be without their centre-forward Nicolas Jackson for the foreseeable future so that could see Christopher Nkunku coming into the starting XI. Reece James is expected to be fit to start the match but Marc Guiu is another out injured.
Betting
It isn’t very often that we see two teams facing each other twice within the space of a week but that is the case here. You would imagine that in normal circumstances that the coaches will come up with a different game plan to adjust for what went right and wrong in that cup game but these two managers are very much stuck to their style and philosophy so with the exception of a few personnel here or there, I don’t see much changing.
The angle I like here is for goals. We saw goals last week and there could easily have been more than the three that there were, while the reverse meeting between the two sides ended 4-2 to Chelsea so these two are very much better going forward against each other than defending. There is nothing to suggest this will be that one-sided and I would certainly expect both teams to score based on what we saw last week. To bump up the price adding over 2.5 goals to the bet too gets us to a nice punt.
Tips
Back Both teams to score and over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with William Hill
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