Fresh from their emphatic midweek Champions League victory on Wednesday evening, Chelsea return to WSL action on Sunday with the visit of Aston Villa.
The Blues ran out 8-0 winners over Vllaznia in their group stage fixture, with Sam Kerr on target with a record-breaking four goals and Pernille Harder also netting a hat-trick.
Chelsea face a Villa side who came agonisingly close to taking points off them on both occasions they met last term, each time ending in narrow 1-0 score-lines.
When is kick off? Sunday 30 October, 14:00 (BST)
Where is the match being played? Kingsmeadow
TV channel/live stream? FA Player (UK & international)
Referee? Martin Woods
Chelsea continue to be without summer signing Jelena Cankovic, who remains sidelined through injury. Maren Mjelde also misses out as a precaution, having taken ‘a little bit longer than expected’ to recover from the Blues’ victory over PSG eight days ago.
Fran Kirby returned to the Chelsea squad on Wednesday following an illness absence, and general manager Paul Green described the forward as now ‘fully fit’.
Chelsea (3-4-1-2): Berger, Eriksson, Buchanan, Bright; Perisset, Fleming, Cuthbert, Reiten; Harder; James, Kerr.
Aston Villa continue to be without long term injury absentees Meaghan Sargeant, Remi Allen, Emily Gielnik, Simone Magill and Ruesha Littlejohn for the trip to Chelsea.
However, Carla Ward confirmed that Rachel Daly and Hannah Hampton are both back in contention to feature on Sunday.
Aston Villa (4-3-3): Leat; Pacheco, Turner, Patten, Mayling; Corsie, Dali, Blindkilde; Lehmann, Daly, Hanson
Aston Villa are without a win in four in all competitions following their blistering start to the season – although they were perhaps unfortunate to come away with nothing against both Everton and West Ham in their last two WSL outings, having seen a whole host of opportunities go begging.
Chelsea won emphatically in midweek, but the scary thing is the amount of talent that sat on the bench during said victory; Ann-Katrin Berger, Erin Cuthbert, Millie Bright and Lauren James were all unused substitutes on Wednesday evening and will be fresh for the visit of Villa.
Encounters between these two have been tight of late, and it could be the same on Sunday, with Chelsea again narrowly edging it.
Credit: 90min.com
