Soccer Premier League

Stoke City vs. Chelsea: Predicting the Final Score

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Monday night sees Chelsea travel to face Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium in a match that has even bigger repercussions than many would have anticipated several weeks ago.

Jose Mourinho‘s men were tipped to run away with the league when they stormed to the summit with their challengers floundering and tripping over each other along the way. In truth, the season could not have started any better for The Blues, as they picked up four wins from their opening four matches, drawing their fifth against Manchester City at the Etihad.

Going 14 matches unbeaten in the league, it looked as if they might just push hard to equal Arsenal‘s unbeaten season from 2003-04, which has yet to be repeated. And even though the “Special One” was keen to stress how little he thought it might actually happen, many of us just couldn’t stop dreaming.

But now, as it stands, they’re currently level on points with The Citizens and in danger of being sucked back into a feisty scrap for the Premier League crown. Oh, how quickly things change.

Alongside Manuel Pellegrini‘s men, the Londoners currently have the joint-best offensive record with 36 goals for.

Nevertheless, the cracks have begun to appear in recent times, and it’s up to Mark Hughes‘ men to try and prise them open a little bit more.

Now, it’s important to not get over-excited about the whole situation, because the wheels are far from ready to come off Chelsea’s chariot. However, The Potters will feel happy they’re facing them now as opposed to five or 10 matches ago, when there would have been very little doubt about the outcome.

But that doubt has crept in and they’ll do their best to cling on to it when the match kicks off on home turf.

Stoke have plenty to offer right about now, and will look to Bojan Krkic, Jonathan Walters and Peter Crouch to see them over the line, something their recent 3-2 win over Arsenal clearly highlights as possible.

With home support, a real belief and a killer touch, they might just cause an upset, or at least come close to achieving Sunderland’s feat of a draw; it’s definitely not beyond the realms of possibility.

Unsurprisingly, in Chelsea’s loss against Newcastle United, they conceded first, which really put the pressure on them. So, if Krkic can weave another little bit of magic and strike early on, they might just be good enough to carry out a good old-fashioned “sit deep and hope” move.

Frustrating Diego Costa and cutting off the supply from Oscar and Cesc Fabregas will be their best hope — that’s for sure. It just remains to be seen how badly the visitors want the win. Obviously they’ll be very driven to keep themselves three points clear of City, but, as everyone knows, slip-ups can, and do, occur to the best of the best when they’re busy looking over their shoulder.

Prediction: Stoke City 2-2 Chelsea

Trevor Murray is a soccer writer at www.RantSports.com. You can follow him on twitter @TrevorM90, ‘”like” him on Facebook or add him to your circles in Google+.

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