Can Liverpool break Chelsea's perfect home run?
The champions welcome a wounded Liverpool with an unbeaten league season on the line.
It's the one they've all been waiting for since the fixtures dropped. Chelsea, top of the pile and still unbeaten after sixteen league games, against a Liverpool side that has forgotten what it feels like to beat them. You don't need me to tell you the stakes: a win here would stretch the gap to nineteen points before the turkey's even carved, and keep that perfect home record gleaming.
But let's not get carried away. Liverpool might be limping in second, thirty points from the same number of games, but they'll come with nothing to lose and a point to prove. They've taken one point from their last nine away from home, and their last two meetings with Chelsea have ended in defeat: 3-0 in October and 2-1 in August. The scars are fresh.
What makes this one extra spicy is the old boys in red. Eddie Melia, Sikiru Isa and Matt Allen all swapped Chelsea for Liverpool, though none of them exactly tore up trees in blue. Melia made four appearances in a decade, Isa one, Allen one. If any of them finds the net on the 22nd, you'll hear the away end singing about it until New Year. That's football, isn't it? The ones who couldn't get a game always come back to haunt you.
Chelsea will be without Nacho Valera, Jairzinho and Ibrahim Ramadan, but let's be honest, this squad could field two XIs and still win the league by Easter. Liverpool have their own problems: Edmilson Dias, Patrick Onana and Conall Beck are all out. The difference is, when Chelsea lose players, they replace them with world-beaters. When Liverpool lose players, they replace them with hope.
Form says Chelsea: DWWWW. Liverpool: LDDWL. The table says Chelsea: 46 points to Liverpool's 30. The history says Chelsea: three of the last four meetings, including that extra-time heartbreaker for Liverpool in May's cup final. But form, table and history don't kick a ball. It's eleven against eleven under the lights, and if Liverpool can nick an early goal, the nerves might just creep in.
Can Liverpool break Chelsea's perfect home run? You wouldn't bet your house on it. But you'd watch every second.