At Stamford Bridge on Saturday night, Chelsea will play Preston North End, a team from the Championship.
The Blues have only lost two of their twenty-five FA Cup home matches in the allotted ninety minutes since League Two Bradford shocked Premier League Chelsea in 2015.
Before losing to Man City 4-0 in the previous season’s competition, the London club had won against lower league teams eight times in a row to start their cup campaign.
Although Preston manager Ryan Lowe has exaggerated the importance of the match for North End, the Premier League team is likely to win handily.
Preston has suffered some unfair defeats this season and has dropped four of their last five games in the Championship.
They have suffered crushing losses to Watford (5-1), Middlesbrough (4-0), West Brom (4-0), Ipswich (4-2) and Leicester (3-0) since their unbeaten start to the season came to an end.
It’s also important to note that they have failed to advance past the fourth round of the FA Cup in six out of the past eight seasons.
Despite having eight games remaining before they play Luton, Chelsea’s expensively assembled roster is arguably the deepest in the league, so Saturday might be an opportunity to use the group.
Mykhailo Mudryk, Ian Maatsen, Christopher Nkunku, Enzo Fernandez, Raheem Sterling, and Ian Maatsen all came off the bench the previous weekend and could start against Preston.
Preston gives up far too many chances and has been struggling to create lately, so regardless of the team they field, we’re backing a comfortable home win to zero.
Since they have scored most of their goals in the second half of games, that should be the highest-scoring half of the game provided they can maintain their organization in the first half.
Important statistics: – Preston has lost nine of eleven FA Cup ties, conceding 26 goals; – Chelsea is unbeaten in six home games and has scored 14 goals; – This is the first meeting since Chelsea won 2-0 in an FA Cup tie in 2010.
