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It was a positive first year in charge for Chelsea legend Frank Lampard, getting to the Champions League knockout stages, reaching the FA Cup final and achieving a top four finish with a notably young squad.
Consistency was always going to be the challenge when promoting so many academy graduates, and conceding the most goals from any side in the top half of the table (54) highlighted the need for recruitment, which they’ve managed in abundance.
Timo Werner, Kai Havertz, Thiago Silva, Hakim Ziyech and Ben Chilwell all come into the first team squad this season to both at potency to their attack as well as shoring up their leaky defence, though the latter two will miss out on making their debuts in this game through injury.
Brighton conceded just as many goals as the Blues last season, though have also reinforced their backline with the signing of Joel Veltman from Ajax, while Ben White returning from an impressive loan spell at Leeds to sign a new contract will be a massive boost to them.
Graham Potter did well in his first season in charge when many picked the south coast side for the drop, though a run of just three defeats in their last 10 games, despite facing six of the top eight in that time, ensured they’d be plying their trade in England’s top flight for another season, at least.
Chelsea To Win And Both Teams To Score
Chelsea would have done the double over the Seagulls if it weren’t for a last gasp acrobatic effort from Alireza Jahanbakhsh at the Amex to clinch a point. That happens to be the only point Brighton have picked up against the London side in six meetings since their promotion, and they’ll be hard pressed to pick up another here.
Brighton have a W4-D5-L27 record against top six finishers over the last three seasons, with three of those wins coming against the side that scraped sixth that year so it’s difficult to see them repeating their heroics from the opening day last season when they downed Watford 3-0.
Chelsea went down 4-0 themselves at Old Trafford in Frank Lampard’s opening game as manager, though their record against the weaker clubs makes for good reading. Despite some lapses last season, they’re still W17-D4-L3 against bottom six sides so we’d expect them to come up trumps here.
While the visitors have brought in defenders, Ben Chilwell is sidelined through injury while Thiago Silva has only just joined up with the squad having quarantined in Italy so is unlikely to play a role.
This leaves their defence from last season intact, who conceded in 29 of 38 matches and we’re not confident they’ll keep a clean sheet here, though they should have too much up top and the match result with both teams to score looks an attractive option.
Timo Werner To Score Anytime
What’s more, Chelsea attackers have an extremely strong record of debut goals which Timo Werner will be desperate to join.
Alvaro Morata, Diego Costa, Willian, Pedro and Juan Mata all managed to find the net in their Premier League opener, and with Werner on the scoresheet against Brighton themselves in preseason, as well as over the international break against Spain, we’ll get behind him to hit the ground running and join that group.
Chelsea To Win And Both Teams to Score At 9/4
Timo Werner To Score Anytime At 9/10
BRIGHTON V CHELSEA ODDS AVAILABLE HERE
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ODDS ARE CORRECT AS OF 11/9/2020 HOWEVER ARE SUBJECT TO FLUCTUATIONS
