HomeZ OLD CATEGORIESCardiffCardiff City v Chelsea Preview | Key Men, Stats & Team News

Cardiff City v Chelsea Preview | Key Men, Stats & Team News

Cardiff City’s final Barclays Premier League game is the visit of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea side. carvsche

Both teams can look back at what has been an extremely disappointing season. Cardiff City find themselves rock bottom and already relegated and Chelsea, well having been knocked out of the UEFA Champions League at the Semi-Final stage, find themselves purely playing for 2nd place in the league this season.

Fans of both teams will wonder what could have been, Cardiff fans will point to the sacking of Malkay Mackay as the turning point of their season and Chelsea fans will point to a lack of a proven goalscorer as the reason why they haven’t won anything this season.

The form book is clear, there should only be one winner in this fixture. Cardiff City have picked up only 1 win in their last 5 outings, conceding 14 goals in the process.

Chelsea have won 3 of their last 5 including their impressive 2-0 win away at Liverpool.

Match Facts

  • The last time the sides met in Cardiff, Cardiff City ran out 2-1 winners in the League Cup tie at Ninian Park.
  • The Chelsea pair of Eden Hazard and Samuel Eto’o have notched 28 league goals between them so far this season.
  • Cardiff City as a whole have only managed to hit the back of the net 31 times.

Team News

Cardiff City will be without Mark Hudson and Craig Noone for this game but will check the fitness of Gary Medel, Mats Moller Daheli and defender Theophile-Catherine.

Wilfried Zaha will play his last game for Cardiff City in his current loan spell.

Chelsea only have goalkeeper Petr Cech and Oscar unavailable for this game. Frank Lampard, John Terry and Ashley Cole could all potentially be lining up for Chelsea for the very last time with none of them having agreed an extension to their contracts that run out in June.

Key Men

Screen Shot 2014-05-08 at 18.50.34David Marshall is one of the very few Cardiff players who have come out of this season with any credit. He has been exceptional. Time after time he has made incredible saves and without him, Cardiff would have a lot less points.

It would be a miracle if he is not back in the Barclays Premier League next season.

7 clean sheets is a decent amount considering what has been going on in front of him and he has made a save on average, every 21 minutes.

Eden Hazard has been Chelsea’s stand out player this season. He has been their main attacking threat. This season Hazard has created a massive 80 chances for his team mates with 9 of them being clear cut chances.

Add to that 14 league goals and you can see that Hazard is maturing into a truly world class talent.

Screen Shot 2014-05-08 at 18.50.46

Match Prediction

Both sides have very little other than pride to play for. Cardiff will hope that by winning this game it will prevent them from finishing bottom of the pile. Chelsea however will be looking for the 3 points and 2nd place finish in the Barclays Premier League.

Unfortunately for Cardiff I can only see one outcome, a comfortable Chelsea win 3-1.

JamesFishlock
JamesFishlock
Family man from Cardiff, big LFC fan and football fan in general. Not short of an opinion or two, loves the banter and a good chat about all things LFC related.
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