TALKING POINTS

 

Steve Bruce's side will be anxious not to lose twice in a row at the start of a Premier League season for the first time since 2005/6. Chelsea were also one of the two sides they lost to back then.

 

Yes, it's only after one game and, yes, it doesn't mean anything significant yet, but it does look nice to be top of the table, doesn't it? In fact, Chelsea are leaders after the opening league weekend for the first time since the 1999/2000 season. Back then, Sunderland had been put to the sword 4-0 at the Bridge in a game immortalised by Gianfranco Zola's assist for Gustavo Poyet's volleyed goal. The victory over Pompey last Sunday was Chelsea's best opening tally since that day.

  

Emile Heskey, who appears to have resurrected his England plans under Fabio Capello, was one of several scorers of late goals against Chelsea that proved so costly in last season's title race. During the Premier League run-in, his injury time knock-in removed two points from the Blues' final tally, as did those last-gasp strikes from Tim Cahill for Everton (1-1 in November), Villa's Gareth Barry (4-4 in December), Spurs (4-4 at White Hart Lane) and Matthew Taylor (1-1) in the final game against Bolton.    

Chelsea late goals conceded 2007/8

Aston Villa (a)    (88)  L 0-2

Man Utd (a)        (90)  L 0-2

Everton (h)         (90)  D 1-1 (2 points dropped)

Aston Villa (h)    (90)  D 4-4 (2 points dropped)

Tottenham (a)    (88)  D 4-4 (2 points dropped)

Wigan (h)          (90)  D 1-1 (2 points dropped)

Bolton (h)          (90)  D 1-1 (2 points dropped)     

 

 

Of course, Latics fans would shrug at Heskey's killer blow that it was about time the roles were reversed, Chelsea having stung them twice consecutively in this JJB fixture in the dying moments of a match. On their top flight debut in 2005/6 Wigan delivered a spirited display and looked to have secured an impressive draw until the otherwise anonymous Hernan Crespo cut in from the right and blasted brilliantly past veteran keeper Mike Pollitt with virtually the last kick of the game. Wigan were stunned: what a welcome to the Premier League.

The following season lighting struck for a second time just before Christmas 2006. Chelsea had cruised into a two-goal lead through Frank Lampard and Salomon Kalou just past the half-hour mark, but then lost their momentum. Given room, Heskey was outstanding, bullying a defence featuring Khalid Boulahrouz in place of John Terry, and scoring twice in the second half to level the scores. Mikel was soon introduced for Makelele and Chelsea started to hold the ball better. Still, when Robben suddenly came alive down the right, and mimicked Crespo's goal with an 89th long-range winner, it was another scintillating surprise for Blues fans and another gut-wrencher for Athletic's supporters.

 

Last season Chelsea also scored two late goals that turned a draw into three points. And last Sunday Deco, with his late, late debut smash into David James's net, has maybe started a nice positive trend in the same direction.

 

Chelsea late goals scored 2007/8

Man City (h)       (90)  W 6-0

Aston Villa (h)    (88)  D 4-4

Newcastle (h)     (87)  W 2-1 (2 points gained)

Man Utd (h)        (86)  W 2-1 (2 points gained)

 

With Manchester Utd not playing until the following day, Luiz Felipe Scolari's team has the chance to move five points ahead with a win. Utd's surprisingly slack home start last weekend exemplified the goalscoring problem their manager has highlighted in preseason. Arsenal appear to have a relatively easy game at troubled Fulham, while Liverpool - another team who looked sluggish last week - will hope to have an easier ride at home to resurgent Boro than they did last season, when Boro caused plenty of problems despite a Torres hat-trick, and lost narrowly 2-3.   

 

 

Weekend fixtures involving last season's top four

Sat    3pm          Liverpool v Middlesbrough

Sat    5.30pm      Fulham v Arsenal

Sun   1.30pm      Wigan v Chelsea

Mon   8pm          Portsmouth v Man Utd

 

 

WE HAVE HISTORY

 

Chelsea have never lost in the League at Wigan's ground, but then again our two sides have only met 11 times. The majority of the meetings (six) have been in the Premier League. Older fans will remember the humiliating 2-4 away defeat in the League Cup back in 1981.

 

Wigan's manager Steve Bruce doesn't have a very distinguished record against Chelsea. In ten matches in all competitions with previous club Birmingham City he oversaw no wins, four draws and six defeats. He tends to show Chelsea a lot respect early on, fielding a very defensive unit to limit damage, but if he feels there is something to go for late on he's not afraid to gamble.

 

That's what happened when he earned a draw with Wigan at the Bridge last April. Chelsea looked to be taking it easy at 1-0 and Bruce made three attacking substitutions in the second half and was rewarded with Heskey's late strike.

 

 

Chelsea's away record against Wigan in the Premier League:

2005/06

Wigan 0 Chelsea 1 (Crespo 90)

2006/07

Wigan 2 (Heskey 45, 75) Chelsea 3 (Lampard 13, Kalou 31, Robben 89)

2007/08

Wigan 0 Chelsea 2 (Lampard 11, Belletti 18)

 

 

Manager Chris Hutchings was removed from office directly after Chelsea's straightforward win here last year; by coincidence he is a former Blue. A huge Chelsea away contingent saw Wigan dominated from start to finish, and also witnessed a Juliano Belletti special for the goal that followed Frank Lampard's opener. The Latics were surprisingly lacklustre apart from the ferocious midfielder Michael Brown, who was lucky not to be punished further for a number of dangerous challenges. Mario Melchiot was serenaded by travelling fans with the refrain: 'We've got no Marios', an updating of the 'two Marios' song heard when his namesake Stanic was also at Stamford Bridge.    

 

LAST SEASON'S CORRESPONDING MATCH

Wigan Athletic 0 Chelsea 2

Premier League, Saturday November 3rd 2007 at JJB Stadium, Wigan.

Wigan

Manager Chris Hutchings.

 

Kirkland

 

Bramble     Melchiot (c)       Granqvist   Kilbane

 

Valencia   Brown (Skoko 85) Landzaat (Sibierski 82) Scharner  Koumas

 

Bent

Booked Landzaat

 

Malouda     Drogba (Kalou 75)       Wright-Phillips

 

Lampard (c)        Mikel         Essien (Sidwell 76)

 

Bridge       Carvalho    Alex          Belletti

 

Cech

 

Manager Avram Grant

Chelsea

Booked Drogba

Scorers: Lampard (11), Belletti (18)

Referee Steve Bennett

Crowd 19,011

 

 

 

Wigan v Chelsea in all competitions:

Games played      11

Chelsea wins         7

Wigan wins           2

Draws                   2

 

Head-to-head in the League at the JJB Stadium:

Games played      3

Chelsea wins        3

Wigan wins          0

Draws                  0

 

 

THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE

The referee is Alan Wiley 

 

CHELSEA STATS

 

The Blues are on the longest current unbeaten run in the Premier League of 22 (16 wins and six draws) matches since the defeat at the Emirates in December - our only loss in 32.

 

Chelsea have not lost when scoring first in the Premier League for 43 games (37 wins, six draws) since the 1-2 defeat at Tottenham in November 2006.

 

Chelsea had the best away record in the Premier League last season with 42 points from a possible 57.

 

 

Luiz Felipe Scolari joined José Mourinho as the only managers from our last 11 to be victorious in their first league game in charge since John Neal in 1981.

 

 

LANDMARKS

 

Frank Lampard is due to make his 350th start for the club and Ashley Cole his 50th Premier League start in a blue shirt.

 

Frank, currently on 370 games including substitute appearances, will become our twelfth all time appearance maker moving ahead of 1920's full back George Smith and record scorer Bobby Tambling. His next target is Charlie Cooke on 373.

 

Congratulations to new boys José Bosingwa who celebrates his 26th birthday on Sunday and to Deco who will be 31 on next Wednesday.

 

Chelsea's last six games

Apr 26    Man Utd           H  W 2-1

Apr 30    Liverpool           H  W 3-2  CL semi-final (aet)

May 5     Newcastle        A  W 2-0

May 11   Bolton              H  D 1-1

May 21   Man Utd           N  D 1-1   CL Final (lost 5-6 on pens aet)

Aug 17   Portsmouth       H  W 4-0

 

 

WIGAN STATS

On Tuesday this week Wigan celebrated 30 years since their first League game against Hereford in the old Fourth Division when John Neal's former assistant at Chelsea, Ian McNeill, was their manager.

 

Wigan Athletic were founded in 1932. It took forty-six years and 34 unsuccessful attempts before they were elected to the Football League. They have made incredible progress to reach the top flight for the first time in 2005. They have been Second and Third Division champions as well as winning the Freight Rover Trophy in 1985 and the Auto Windscreens Shield in 1999.

 

Wigan have lost only one of their last eight league matches at the JJB in a run stretching back to January that includes four wins, three draws and a defeat against Champions Man Utd on the last day of the season.

 

Since Wigan achieved promotion to the top flight in 2005 they have yet to beat any of the 'big four' clubs. In the 24 encounters they have lost 21 and drawn three all last season against Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.

 

Wigan achieved 29 pts at the JJB last term, the same as Tottenham, Portsmouth and Newcastle and failed to beat any of the top six. Only five teams conceded fewer than Wigan's 17 goals although their goal tally of 21 was only better than Reading (19) and Derby (12).

 

Emile Heskey needs a brace for 100 career Premier League goals for Leicester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Wigan.

 

Wigan's top Premier League scorers were Marcus Bent seven (now Birmingham) and Emile Heskey, Paul Scharner and Antoine Sibierski four. Chelsea's were Frank Lampard 10 and Didier Drogba eight.

 

 

KEY STAT

 

We are unbeaten in 10 away Premier League games and are looking for a fourth successive away league victory following wins last season at Man City, Everton and Newcastle.

 

 

WIGAN IN THE PREM

 

This will be Wigan's fourth season in the Premier League.

                Pts    Pos

2005/06     51     10th

2006/07     38     17th

2007/08     40     14th

 

The arrival of new Egyptian forward Amr Zaki spelled the end of Marlon King's time at the JJB (he has gone on a season-long loan to Premier League arrivals Hull City). He scored on his debut last weekend in the 1-2 defeat at Upton Park.

Paul Scharner, returning from injury, looked sluggish in the opening stages against West Ham Utd, and defensive errors proved costly. Nil-two down inside ten minutes, Steve Bruce's side had the better of the remainder, with Wilson Palacios continuing the influential form that alerted top clubs to his qualities towards the end of last season. Impressive as he was on his debut, he lithe, nippy Zaki missed two excellent openings as well as scoring once, and as a result the Hammers might even have won more comfortably with one or two rare breakaways. Zaki played in a freeish role just behind usual target man Emile Heskey.

Bruce made two late changes at the back, former Chelsea favourite Mario Melchiot and Paul Scharner making way for Daniel De Ridder and the attacking midfielder Jason Koumas, with Antoine Sibierski replacing Lee Cattermole two minutes later, to try to sneak a point with just under ten minutes to go.

 

West Ham held out, but only just. Wigan looked confident and well-organised by the end of the game.  

 

 

LAST LINE-UP

 

Aug 16, 2008 West Ham (away) Lost 1-2

 

 

Kirkland

 

Melchiot (c)        (De Ridder 83) Boyce  Scharner (Koumas 83)  Figueroa

 

Valencia        Palacios      Cattermole (Sibierski 85)     Kapo

 

Zaki      

 

Heskey

 

Scorer: Zaki 47

 

Latics managers this decade

John Benson        1999-2000

Bruce Rioch         2000-01

Steve Bruce         2001

Paul Jewell           2001-07

Chris Hutchings    2007

Frank Barlow        2007 (caretaker)

Steve Bruce         November 2007 to date

 

Wigan's last six games

Apr 14    Chelsea           A  D 1-1

Apr 19    Tottenham       H  D 1-1

Apr 26    Reading           H  D 0-0

May 3     Aston Villa       A  W 2-0

May 11   Man Utd           H  L 0-2

Aug 16   West Ham        A  L 1-2 

 

NEW BOYS

 

Completed summer transfers

 

CHELSEA

In: Deco (Barcelona, undisclosed), José Bosingwa (Porto, undisclosed),

Out: Steve Sidwell (Aston Villa, undisclosed), Claude Makelele (PSG, free), Tal Ben Haim (Man City, undisclosed), Khalid Boulahrouz (Stuttgart, undisclosed), Hernán Crespo, (released, now Inter Milan), Anthony Grant (Southend, released, now Southend), Adrian Pettigrew (released), James Simmonds (released), Phil Younghusband (released), Per Weihrauch (retired), Claudio Pizarro (Werder Bremen, loan), Ben Sahar (Portsmouth, loan), Shaun Cummings (MK Dons, loan), Ryan Bertrand (Norwich, loan), Jimmy Smith (Sheffield Wed, loan), Lee Sawyer (Southend, loan), Jack Cork (Southampton, loan).

 

WIGAN

Ins: Lee Cattermole (Middlesbrough, £3.5m), Olivier Kapo (Birmingham, £3.5m), Daniel de Ridder (Birmingham, free), Amr Zaki (Zamalek, loan).

Outs: Andreas Granqvist (Groningen, £600,000), Julius Aghahowa (Kayserispor, undisclosed), Salomon Olembe (Kayserispor, undisclosed), David Cotterill (Sheffield United, undisclosed), Josip Skoko (Hajduk Split, free), undisclosed), Marlon King (Hull City, loan), Marcus Bent (Charlton, loan expired).

 

OTHERWISE ENGAGED

 

There are no suspensions on either side. Salomon Kalou has returned from representing Ivory Coast in the Olympics.