Having gone toe-to-toe with local rivals and league leaders Arsenal, despite a one-player disadvantage, Chelsea now face another old enemy, Leeds United, on their own patch on Wednesday night. Here club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton help look ahead to another eagerly anticipated clash…
The Blues remain strong challengers on all fronts and this trip up the M1 is the first of eight matches taking in three different countries over the next two weeks.
Daniel Farke’s hosts have tasted defeat in two of their last three league outings at Elland Road, previously a fortress, and have slipped to 18th in the table.
The Whites’ four-match losing run with no clean sheet in ten has left them with four points fewer than at the same stage of the 2022/23 season that saw them tumble to the Championship.
That said, home comforts have still contributed almost three-quarters of their points tally and – like Chelsea – their season ticket holders are yet to see them trailing at half-time.
This is the first of five rounds of Premier League midweeks where every match is broadcast live on Sky Sports or streamed via the Sky Sports+ app.
Further batches of evening fixtures come on matchweek 19, which straddles New Year’s Eve, 21 in early January, 26 in mid-February and 29 in early March.
Chelsea have won 12 and drawn three of our past 17 top-flight matches kicking off at 7pm or later and scored in each of our past six away games, winning four of those.
Days ahead of another away trip to mid-table Bournemouth, Enzo Maresca will aim to get the better of Yorkshire’s leading side for the first time, having fallen short twice as Leicester boss in the 2023/24 Championship.
The Londoners cannot slip below third after Tuesday’s action and victory in Yorkshire could reclaim second slot should Man City fall short at Fulham, with us just a point behind in third.
Chelsea vs Leeds – the history
Elland Road is undeniably a Chelsea bogey ground, with only six of our 48 league visits (12.5 per cent) securing all the points – our worst record apart from Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough.
On one famous occasion in 1993 traveling Blues fans defiantly chorused ‘Chelsea, Chelsea’ non-stop for 45 minutes as the game drifted away yet again.
The Londoners’ 2-0 win of September 1988, thanks to first-half goals from Johnny Bumstead and Gordon Durie, was the first in Yorkshire’s capital in over 52 years – since George Mills grabbed a late stunner for 3-2 in August 1936 in the old Division One.
There was, of course, the little matter of beating them 2-1 at Old Trafford in the 1970 FA Cup final replay – glory enough to cure decades of heartache.
Even in the Premier League era, Leeds have proved a tough nut to crack on their own soil though. There was a wonderful Blues comeback from 2-0 down in August 1994, Dennis Wise from the spot and John Spencer with two to seal the 3-2 win, and homegrown full-back Jon Harley’s name was the only one on the scoresheet in April 2000.
Leeds were in second place then, but four years later at the Bridge that was Chelsea’s position and the Whites’ relegation was confirmed with a 1-0 loss.
Our most recent successful foray up the M1 was against Jesse Marsch’s United in May 2022.
Mason Mount opened the scoring early and the balance swung even further south when Dan James received his marching orders.
Second-half goals from Christian Pulisic and Romelu Lukaku confined Leeds to the bottom three once more – but they avoided the drop for another year.
The US coach gained revenge by the reverse of that 3-0 scoreline on our last visit under Thomas Tuchel in August the same year.
Know this…
Chelsea are the top-flight’s most successful away team, averaging 2.17 points per game on the road so far this season with a goal difference of +9.
Leeds have lost six of their last 12 midweek Premier League games, drawing five others and winning one.
On Sunday Alejandro Garnacho became the youngest South American player to make 100 Premier League appearances (21 years and 152 days).
Daniel Farke was on the wrong end of a 10-1 aggregate the last time he faced the Blues home and away with Norwich City in 2021/22; Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah scored in those games.
Chelsea, Leeds and Arsenal are the only Premier League clubs likely to be unaffected by call-ups to this season’s Africa Cup of Nations, which runs from 21 December to 18 January in Morocco.
Teams the Blues will face in that period who could be missing players include Everton (Idrissa Gueye, Iliman Ndiaye), Newcastle (Yoane Wissa), Aston Villa (Evann Guessand), Bournemouth (Amine Adli), Man City (Omar Marmoush and Rayan Ait-Nouri), Fulham (Calvin Bassey, Samuel Chukwueze and Alex Iwobi), and Brentford (Frank Onyeka and Dango Ouattara).
Chelsea’s heroic 2-1 defeat of Leeds in the epic 1970 FA Cup final replay still has the highest UK TV viewing figure for any club football match, with 29.49 million tuning in.
