Aston Villa vs. Chelsea, Premier League: Lineups & Game Thread

Chelsea have a chance to move back into the top-five and also close the gap to fourth place to just three points by beating Aston Villa tonight. That sounds simple enough, but when have we made anything simple for ourselves lately?

Liam Rosenior makes a few changes from Sunday, some enforced like Pedro Neto missing out due to suspension, but some rather surprising, like Filip Jörgensen getting the nod in goal ahead of Robert Sánchez. Hmmm….

There’s a whole host of ex-Chelsea players on the Villa bench, plus an ex-Chelsea player starting in Ian Maatsen.

Aston Villa starting XI:
Martínez, Cash, Konsa (c), Mings, Maatsen, Onana, Luiz, Bailey, Buendía, Rogers, Watkins

Substitutes from: Bizot, Lindelöf, Digne, Torres, Bogarde, Barkley, Sancho, Abraham, Alysson

Chelsea starting lineup (4-2-3-1):
Jörgensen | Hato, Chalobah, Fofana, Gusto | Caicedo, James (c) | Garnacho, Enzo, Palmer | João Pedro

Substitutes from: Sánchez, Badiashile, Sarr, Tosin, Cucurella, Santos, Lavia, Delap, Guiu

Date / Time: Wednesday, March 4, 19.30 GMT; 2:30pm EST; 1am IST (next day)
Venue: Villa Park, Birmingham
Referee: Jarred Gillett (on pitch); James Bell (VAR)

On TV: TNT Sports 3 (UK); USA, Universo (USA); none (India); elsewhere
Streaming: discovery+ (UK); Universo Now (USA); JioHotstar (India)

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!