Champions league: Group B: CHELSEA vs. VALENCIA

There really isn’t much to play for in this group B match, except for Chelsea to add another home game to their unbeaten record, which they don’t want to lose. Valencia’s season is starting to fall to pieces very quickly; they were held to a boring goalless drew in La Liga on Saturday against Osasuna and are having one hell of a time trying to score goals. They have now gone four games without hitting the back of the net and you would have to go back to the tenth of November to see the last Valencia goal. They can still qualify for the UEFA cup by finishing in third spot in their group, but who would back them winning at Stamford Bridge when so many others have failed?

The most surprising of Valencia’s problems has to be in front of goal. It’s not as if they don’t have the players. David Villa, Fernando Morientes and Zigic have all proven themselves as adept goal scorers. Coach Ronald Koeman has decided to use players from Valencia’s inferior category instead of his usual choices, as he also has a lot of injury problems to deal with. So out is David Albelda, who got a red card in the last Champions match against Schalke 04, and Miguel Ángel Angulo, Joaquín Sánchez, Marco Caneira, Rubén Baraja Alexis Ruano have all been ruled out owing to various physical problems.

Chelsea, who struggled to beat Sunderland at home in the Premier league at the weekend, have their own injury worries, too. Didier Drogba has just had knee surgery and will be out for a while, and when he does get back to full fitness he will travel back home to take put in the African cup. That leaves Chelsea flop Andriy Shevchenko to fill his boots. But in this game I don’t think Chelsea needs to worry too much. They have only conceded one goal in the last seven matches and have scored twelve. Just don’t put all your money on a runaway victory for the home side, though. This is going to be a bitter fought, untidy game with very few chances for either team. I’m going for a one nil win for Chelsea, who will be thinking of the Premier league match against Arsenal the following weekend.

Prediction: Home win (1-0)