Blues Travel To Chelsea

Blues go to Chelsea on Wednesday night looking for points to drastically ease relegation worries. But Chelsea have suddenly hit the form they should have been in all season, then tonight they might have still been pushing for the title.

The good news for Birmingham is they have already proved this season that Chelsea are beatable after coming out on top of the game at St Andrews in November.

The bad news however, is that Blues have not won at Stamford Bridge since September 1979 when they won 2-1.

Alex McLeish: 'Listen, if we do anything at Chelsea we are punching above our weight yet again, as we have done the whole season.

'But the players have got to go there not being fazed.

'Chelsea at present are probably in a good moment. The performance at the weekend at Albion was pretty awesome but, at the same time, our players have got to show how awesome they can be.'

(Birmingham Mail)

Alex and Ramires have failed to recover from hamstring injuries and will miss Chelsea's Barclays Premier League game against Birmingham on Wednesday night.

The Brazilian duo were expected to be fit after sitting out Saturday's win at West Brom but will now be unavailable until after this weekend's clash with West Ham.

Branislav Ivanovic is doubtful with a muscle strain, which was due to be assessed on Tuesday.

Chelsea (from): Cech, Bosingwa, Ferreira, Terry, Luiz, Ivanovic, Zhirkov, Cole, Mikel, Essien, Lampard, Benayoun, Kalou, Malouda, Anelka, Torres, Drogba, Turnbull.

Found his scoring touch again and there is ni doubting his ability in front of goal.

Birmingham winger Jean Beausejour is back in contention after injury.

The Chile international missed the 1-1 draw at Blackburn and the 2-0 home success over Sunderland at the weekend with a hamstring strain.

City boss Alex McLeish, whose side defeated Chelsea 1-0 at St Andrew's in November, has no fresh injury concerns, but strikers Nikola Zigic and Obafemi Martins plus defender Martin Jiranek remain sidelined with groin problems.

Birmingham (from): Foster, Carr, Johnson, Ridgewell, Parnaby, Larsson, Gardner, Ferguson, Bowyer, Jerome, Phillips, Doyle, Hleb, Fahey, Derbyshire, Mutch, Davies, Bentley, Beausejour.

Superb player, Chelsea won't faze him.

Chelsea

Carlo Ancelotti's men go into the game on a seven-match Premier League unbeaten run.

The West London club have picked up just 61 points from their first 32 matches. It is their lowest return at this stage of a season since Roman Abramovich became owner of the club.

Fernando Torres is yet to score for Chelsea, having played in 12 matches for the club in all competitions. In total, he has failed to score in 792 minutes of club football, 702 of those have been in a Chelsea shirt.

Birmingham

Birmingham have never won a Premier League away fixture on a Wednesday in 11 previous attempts. They lost 3-0 at Chelsea last year, a match also played on a Wednesday.

Alex McLeish's side are looking to win back-to back league games for only the second time this campaign.

The Blues have eight Premier League victories this season - only Wigan and West Ham (both seven) have won fewer.

(stats from bbc sport)

Referee: Mike Jones

Assistant referees: Dave Bryan & Andy Newbold

Fourth official: Anthony Taylor

Not very hopeful to be honest. If we play well we might get a draw so I'll say 1-1.

01 May 2011 Birmingham v Wolves
07 May 2011 Newcastle v Birmingham
15 May 2011 Birmingham v Fulham
Su 22 May 2011 Tottenham v Birmingham



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