Ewood Park
Sunday, 23 December
Kick-off: 1610 GMT
BBC coverage: BBC Sport website, BBC Radio Five Live & highlights on Match of the Day.
Blackburn’s unsettled back four is again affected by injuries and suspension: centre-back Chris Samba is out serving a one-match ban.
Zurab Khizanishvili or midfielder Aaron Mokoena look most likely to step in, although the versatile Brett Emerton returns after suspension.
Chelsea are waiting on the fitness of Andriy Shevchenko after the striker injured his ankle in midweek.
Claudio Pizarro should have shaken off a virus in time to be in the squad.
Blackburn (from): Friedel, Emerton, Nelsen, Warnock, Tugay, Mokoena, Reid, Bentley, Dunn, Pedersen, Santa Cruz, McCarthy, Roberts, Brown, Savage, Berner, Derbyshire, Khizanishvili.
Chelsea (from): Cech, Cudicini, Hilario, Belletti, Ferreira, Carvalho, Alex, Ben-Haim, A Cole, J Cole, Lampard, Essien, Sidwell, Kalou, Shevchenko, Mikel, Sinclair, Wright-Phillips, Pizarro.
Blackburn manager Mark Hughes says his team must stop leaking goals:
“It isn’t just about the back four or five it is a collective thing right throughout the team.
“At the moment we are giving ourselves a little bit too much to do.
“There is a feeling of frustration. It is very evident that is where our problems lie, conceding too many goals, so we are working hard to address it.”
Chelsea manager Avram Grant pays tribute to Frank Lampard, who is on the verge of 100 goals for the club:
“Frank is a great player, a great professional.
“He has a lot of qualities and one of them is to score a lot of goals. He had a bad injury this season and didn’t play for a month which is unusual.
“In the last few years he has played in all of the games but he is back with a lot of passion.”
This game brings together the third bottom and third top clubs in the Premier League’s “Last Six Current Form” table.
Blackburn’ s midweek Carling Cup exit to Arsenal came on the back of a shock 5-3 defeat away to lowly Wigan when Roque Santa Cruz scored a hat-trick and ended up on the losing side. Rovers are now anxious to avoid three straight Premier League losses for the first time in over eight months.
Chelsea’s home Carling Cup quarter-final victory over Liverpool, followed Sunday’s league loss at Arsenal. The Blues go into their 600th Premier League game eager to avoid back-to-back defeats for the first time in 55 outings, since the end of the 2005-06 campaign.
The Londoners have gained one more league win away from home than Rovers have achieved at home in the current league campaign (five to four).
This is also a meeting of the two worst behaved clubs in the Premier League with a total of 79 cards being shown to Blackburn and Chelsea players in a combined total of 34 league fixtures so far this term.
Chelsea are chasing a sixth win in eight visits to Ewood Park, yet Blackburn have gained more Premier League points against Chelsea than any other club (41).
BLACKBURN ROVERS
(all statistics are ahead of this weekend’s round of Premier League fixtures)
1. Won one of seven Premier League matches; failed to score in four of the seven.
2. Lost the last three in all competitions, and three of the last four league outings, including the last two.
3. Last suffered three successive Premier League defeats between 17 March and 7 April, when West Ham (h), Manchester United (a) and Aston Villa (a) beat them.
4. Kept one clean sheet in 12 league outings; 0-0, home to Liverpool on 3 November.
5. Been shown five red cards in Premier League competition so far this season; that’s more than any other club; also picked up an unequalled 40 cards.
6. Used fewer players in Premier League matches this season than any other club; 19.
7. Picked up eight Premier League points from losing positions, beating Middlesbrough (a) and Tottenham (a) and drawing with Arsenal (h) and Fulham (a). Only Arsenal beat that, with 11 points gained from matches in which they were trailing.
8. Beaten a “Big Four” club once in the last 12 attempts; the 1-0 home triumph over Liverpool on Boxing Day 2006.
9. The 0-1 defeat to West Ham in the last home game on 9 December, ended an eight-match unbeaten league sequence against London clubs.
10. A visit to Manchester City follows this the day after Boxing Day, then a trip to Derby three days later, before a home clash against Sunderland on 2 January.
CHELSEA
(all statistics are ahead of this weekend’s round of Premier League fixtures)
1. Avoided defeat in 17 of the last 18 in all competitions.
2. The 1-0 defeat, away to Arsenal last Sunday, ended a nine-match unbeaten Premier League run.
3. Won 13, drawn four and lost one of 19 league and cup games under Avram Grant; won seven, drawn two and lost two of 11 league matches under the Israeli.
4. Conceded one goal in seven games in all competitions; shipped one goal in four Premier League matches, and two in 10.
5. Their league games have produced just 34 goals (24 for and 10 against); at 2.00, it’s the lowest goals per game average in the Premier League.
6. Last suffered successive defeats on 2 and 7 May 2006, away to Blackburn and Newcastle respectively.
7. The current tally of 34 points after 17 games is their worst start in five years.
8. Lost only one of the last 11 Premier League matches against north-west clubs; that loss being 2-0, away to Manchester United on 23 September.
9. Kept 10 clean sheets in this Premier League campaign; only Manchester United have also kept that many.
10. Home to Aston Villa on Boxing Day, then to Newcastle three days later, before the New Year’s Day derby clash at neighbours Fulham.
BLACKBURN ROVERS
Roque SANTA CRUZ is Blackburn’s top scorer with 11 goals (five in two games), and the club’s leading Premier League marksman with seven.
Brad FRIEDEL has made 164 successive appearances for Blackburn, 131 of them in the Premier League; the league sequence started at the beginning of the 2004-05 season.
Only FRIEDEL has played every minute of every one of Blackburn’s league and cup matches this season.
David DUNN is a hat-trick shy of 100 club career goals.
If selected:-
Andre OOIJER will be making his 50th appearance in a Blackburn shirt.
Suspended:-
Christopher SAMBA (one match)
CHELSEA
Didier DROGBA is Chelsea’s top scorer with nine goals.
DROGBA and Frank LAMPARD are the clubs joint top marksman in the Premier League, with five each.
LAMPARD is one shy of 100 goals for Chelsea.
DROGBA is a hat-trick short of 50 Premier League goals in Chelsea colours.
If selected:-
LAMPARD will be making his 350th appearance in a Chelsea shirt.
Joe COLE will be making his 250th career Premier League appearance (West Ham and Chelsea).
Ashley COLE will be making his 300th club career appearance (Arsenal, Crystal Palace and Chelsea).
Salomon KALOU will be making his 50th Premier League appearance for Chelsea.
Blackburn have scored just two goals in their last six league and cup meetings with Chelsea.
The Londoners have lost only one of their last seven Premier League visits to Ewood Park.
Home and away
League (inc PL): Blackburn 32 wins, Chelsea 35, Draws 26
Prem: Blackburn 11 wins, Chelsea 8, Draws 8
at Blackburn only
League (inc PL): Blackburn 20 wins, Chelsea 12, Draws 14
Prem: Blackburn 6 wins, Chelsea 5, Draws 2
Blackburn Rovers 0-2 Chelsea
27 August 2006 – Ref: Mark Clattenburg
Chelsea scorers: Lampard 50 pen, Drogba 81
Chelsea 0-0 Blackburn Rovers
15 September 2007 – Ref: Howard Webb
Steve Bennett (Orpington, Kent)
Source: Blackburn v Chelsea
