Chelsea meet Sunderland at Stamford Bridge with both sides in desperate need of the 3 points for ontrasting reasons.

The men from the Kings Road come into this game not in spectacular form, but with the simple ability to keep on grinding out results week after week; a quality which wins league titles. Despite playing aginst ten men for most of their game aginst Swansea City, the match in South Wales was far from easy for Jose Mourinho's side and they only won thanks to a second half Demba Ba strike.

Despite just doing enough if you like this season Chelsea under the special one for the second time are on the verge of a famous double and perhaps their most successful season ever. Back to back league wins and a comeback victory over PSG in the Champions League see the Blues still within two points of Liverpool and looking forward to a European semi-final with Atletico Madrid midweek.

Chelsea have to be wary of this game though and cannot afford to simply turn up and expect a victory because if that happens then their showdown with Liverpool at Anfield next week will be meaningless. However, this is a home game and in four seasons basically under Mourinho, Chelsea have not lost a home league game and it's very hard to see bottom of the league Sunderland breaking that run.

On the other hand visitors Sunderland are clinging onto their seven year Premier League status but will have taken massive encouragment from their 2-2 draw at Manchester City on Wednesday; a game they should have won thanks to Connor Wickham's brace. It was arguably Sunderland's best peformance this season goalkeeper Vito Mannone who cost the Black Cats midweek by spilling Samir Nasri's tame shot late on over the line.

The draw at the Etihad was only the second point in their last seven games for Gus Poyet's men however it kept them within two wins of fourth bottom Norwich with just five games left with three of them at home aginst teams who are still not safe. Chelsea are probably the easiest top team Sunderland have faired against in Premier League history with a couple of big wins and very competive peformances in terms of only being beat by the odd goal.

Striker Connor Wickham who has finally got a run of games in the Premier league for Sunderland scored both goals at Manchester City and feels Sunderland have a great chance at Stamford Bridge saying after Wednesday's games that: "If we play like we did aginst City, then there's no reason we can't get a result on saturday."

Stats

Sunderland have failed to score in six of their last nine visits to Stamford Bridge

Chelsea have kept clean sheets in their last six Premier League home games, their record run was nine up untill November 2010 when the run was ended by Sunderland's 3-0 win.

A positive result will make it 78 home games unbeaten for Jose Mourinho as Chelsea manager.

Team news

Eden Hazard who was the difference in the reverse fixture will miss this game and perhaps the Championns League semi final as well.

Phil Bardsley serves the final game of his suspension ban and midfielder Ki will not recover from his illness.

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About the author
Jamie Joslyn
20 year old sports journalism at Sunderland University, huge Sunderland fan