Atletico Madrid v Chelsea: Supreme Spaniards difficult to oppose

THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE continues on Wednesday night. Here Adam Goodwin (@AGJournalism) picks out his favourite fancy from Chelsea’s trip to Atletico Madrid.

Atletico Madrid v Chelsea | Wednesday 27th September 2017, 19:45 | BT Sport

In a repeat of the 2014 Champions League semi-final, Atletico Madrid and Chelsea do battle in the Spanish capital on Wednesday night.

Chelsea dispatched of Qarabag at home in their first Group C game and when the Azerbaijani’s came to Stamford Bridge a couple of weeks ago, they were far from prepared. Sloppy passes, mistimed tackles and goalkeeping howlers led to the Chelsea goals, but this encounter will be far more challenging.

Danny Drinkwater is the only Chelsea player unavailable for the clash in Madrid and, other than that, the Blues have a fit and healthy squad. Fortunately for Antonio Conte, Diego Costa isn’t illegible for Atletico until January after signing from Chelsea.

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This is Atletico’s first Champions League game in their new stadium, the Wanda Metropolitano, and the atmosphere is sure to be electric. They started Group C with a disappointing 0-0 draw against Roma, but Los Colchoneros dominated the game and probably should have left Italy with three points.

Despite not signing any players this window because of their transfer ban, Atletico still have a superb squad available to them and will cause Chelsea plenty of problems on Wednesday.

Atletico Madrid’s home form is remarkably good in the Champions League, only losing two games in this competition since 2009. Chelsea, on the other hand, don’t fare particularly well when not playing away from Stamford Bridge in Europe.

The Blues have beaten the likes of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Schalke and Sporting Lisbon away from home in the last few years, and have lost to the likes of PSG, Porto and Juventus.

Yes, Chelsea are playing extremely good football at the moment, but not well enough to get a result versus Atletico. Back the hosts to win at 13/11 with Unibet.