Chelsea v Stoke: Potters’ terrible record points at comfortable home win
Published:Chelsea are without a win in three games in all competitions, so the sight of Stoke’s team bus rolling up outside Stamford Bridge will be much welcomed by the European champions.
The Blues are a massive 2/7 to topple Tony Pulis’ men and, given the Potters’ record here, it’s easy to see why.
Since their promotion to the top flight, Stoke have made five trips to the blue part of west London and have lost each one.
They’ve conceded 14 goals in that time, scoring just once themselves and are currently on a four-match run of drawing a blank at the Bridge.
Peter Crouch has bagged in three successive matches following his opener against Man City last time out and he will be the man Pulis looks for to end Stoke’s feeble scoring record at Chelsea.
His price to open the scoring is as lofty as the man himself at 9/1, whereas he can be backed at 3/1 to net at any time.
Roberto Di Matteo’s men seem unfazed by Stoke’s roughhouse style of football, however, and their dominance of this fixture over the seasons deems a price of 5/6 for them to win with a -1 handicap looks a good bet.
Although giving Stoke a two goal head-start would be a bit much, despite this awful record. It’s priced up at 9/4 to try and entice the punters, but the only time Chelsea have only gotten the better of their next adversaries by a deficit of three of more was in a solitary 7-0 win.
Stoke’s robust, well-organised nature serves them well when keeping the score down at places like this so the -2 handicap is to be avoided.
All odds and markets are correct as of publication
