West London deby: Chelsea vs Fulham

Villas-Boas and the Stamford Bridge faithful will be sweating on how Chelsea’s back four will function on Boxing Day against their London rival Fulham.

Luiz (doubtful), Ivanovic and the stalling Mikel are all out with Ramires under suspension. Alex, 29 is barred from training at Cobham and even has lost his car park slot. AVB hopes Luiz can recover from his knee injury but today’s game maybe too early for the Brazilian.

Bosingwa performed his best impersonation of an awkward Portugese defender against Spurs, often helped out by the magnanimous Terry. Paulo Ferriera is back to his right-back duties for Chelsea and will be sporting the trendy face-mask today to protect his fractured face.

Wingback Cole has been playing an attacking role on the left for AVB

Boxing day specialist Frank Lampard, has scored 7 league goals against Fulham will partner Meireles and Romeu in midfield with Mata playing in the ‘ Messi role’ . Ashley Cole and Sturridge have combined to score Chelsea’s last two goals in the PL further emphasizing the impetus on Drogba & Co to score more.

“We don’t accept a transfer request and put a player into training apart from the rest of the squad and then dial 999 and ask for their help”

At the other end, Drogba will be fancying the prospects of a clumsy Fulham. Hangeland and Senderos were craggy against United, conceding a five goal thrashing. Fernando Torres was given 13 minutes at Spurs, but needs more game-time ahead of the African players’ departure in January.

Fulham

are languishing in the bottom-half of the table and haven’t found their mojo under Martin Jol. A 4-2-3-1 formation with Murphy and Etuhu anchoring midfield were run rugged by United and their defence looked quite ordinary.

Innovative duo of Ruiz and Dempsey are Fulham’s best source of attack. Fulham will whip crosses in for Dempsey in hope of a goal with the onus on Andy Johnson to hold the ball up.