Chelsea needs to win this game to reach closer to the Premier League title because Tottenham Hotspurs lost against West Ham earlier this weekend. The Blues would have 7 points more with three games until the end of the championship. This is one of the decisive games of the season for both teams. Middlesbrough will lose Premier League status if they do not win tonight as they are 7 points away from the safe zone. Swansea's win over Hull City theoretically, extended their hopes not relegating.
This guarantees an exciting Monday night football experience.
Chelsea News And Form
The team from Stamford Bridge is in good shape as they have seven wins and only 2 defeats in the last 9 games. They are coming into this match with three straight wins in which they scored at least 3 goals in each event. In total, they netted the ball 11 times during that run. Chelsea is excellent at home this season as they have only two defeats in 16 games along with 14 victories. Their average number of scored goals is a little bit below three per game.
Middlesbrough News And Form
Boro has only one win away from the Riverside Stadium. In 17 matches so far along with that single victory, they have 7draws and 9 defeats with only 10 scored goals. They have conceded only 24 times, but catastrophically offensive performances were the primary cause for such an awful record.
Middlesbrough does not have a defeat in the last two games but previously to this they had 9 straight games without a victory in all competitions. After they had beaten Sunderland, they surprised Manchester City and took one point last week, but it seems that they woke up late.
Injured And Suspended Players
Chelsea
-David Luiz Doubtful
-N'Golo Kanté Doubtful
Middlesbrough
-Grant Leadbitter Doubtful
-Víctor Valdés Doubtful
-Daniel Ayala Doubtful
Top 3
Chelsea
-Diego Costa 32 games 19 goals 7 assists
-Eden Hazard 32 games 15 goals 5 assists
-Pedro 31 games 8 goals 9 assists
Middlesbrough
-Álvaro Negredo 33 games 9 goals 4 assists
-Cristhian Stuani 23 games 4 goals 0 assists
-Marten de Roon 31 games 4 goals 0 assists
Head To Head
Chelsea is having a hot streak against Middlesbrough as they have 7 consecutive victories. And these wins were all convincing because in each of these preview 7 games Chelsea kept a clean sheet while scoring 16 times. In the first part of the season, Chelsea won at Riverside, 1-0, with Diego Costa scoring in the first half.
Prediction
We are not going to suggest you to play on Chelsea tonight because the odds on their win are pretty small. Instead of this, we're going to propose you another solution. Over 1.5 goals in the first half time is something that you shouldn't miss in this game. Also, over 3.5 goals overall is a safe bet for tonight's game.
Goals: Over 1.5 HT
Goals: Over 3.5
