Chelsea will welcome Aston Villa to Stamford Bridge in the EFL Cup third round on Wednesday. The kick-off is at 20:45 CEST.

Preview

Chelsea have enjoyed all but a perfect start to the 2021/22 season, claiming five wins and a draw in the opening six matches across all competitions. It were Liverpool who managed to share points with the Blues (1-1) in the Premier League matchday 3 but Thomas Tuchel's have gone on to defeat their forthcoming opponents 3-0 in the following league game since then.

Aston Villa, for their part, have already eliminated Barrow (6-0) from the EFL Cup in the previous round of the competition in August. As for their run in the English top flight, Dean Smith's side have two wins, two defeats and one draw after the matchday 5.

Both the Blues and the Villans are coming into their second head-to-head meeting this term on the back of respective 3-0 victories against Tottenham and Everton in the PL over the weekend.

Team news

Edouard Mendy and Christian Pulisic are the only injury doubts in the hosts' set-up while Trezeguet and Keinan Davis will definitely miss out on Villa's trip to the English capital due to respective injury woes. Matty Cash, Matt Targett and Leon Bailey, meanwhile, are yet to be given the green light to feature on Wednesday after suffering minor injuries against the Toffees.

Prediction

It's hard to envisage anything but a confident victory for Chelsea in this encounter after their 3-0 thrashing of Smith's crop in the league earlier this month. The Blues, however, are set to be without their first-choice goalkeeper this time around while Tuchel is expected to rotate his squad massively in mid-week. Thus, we wouldn't be surprised to see goals at both ends at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

Tip

Both teams to score at 2 with 1XBET.