Watching the Blues in action on a Saturday evening is a rare occurrence. The last occasion came in April as we played out a 2-2 draw at Aston Villa, but that was our first match in that timeslot for four years.

However, a Saturday teatime kick-off has proved fruitful for Chelsea in recent years, with six of our previous eight fixtures to get underway post-6pm ending in victory.

We have not been as successful in fixtures immediately after an injury break; our most recent success in a post-FIFA setting was a 2-0 win following the mid-season World Cup in December 2022.

That came home to this weekend’s opponents and Enzo Maresca’s men will hope to extend a run of five games without defeat against the Cherries, who were beaten 2-1 by the Blues on the final day of last season.

Confidence within the squad should be high as the Blues have won three Premier League away games on the spin, a feat last achieved in April 2022. That run includes the 6-2 walloping of Wolverhampton Wanderers, our last away fixture in the top flight.

The Blues will also want to produce a shutout after 17 successive games on the road without a clean sheet.

Andoni Iraola was critical of his team’s performance at Everton until their sensational last-gasp comeback to turn 0-2 into 3-2. However, Bournemouth are yet to win at home this term.

Victory could lift Chelsea as high as fifth in the table.

Chelsea team news

Enzo Maresca used international breaks to embed new ideas during his time in charge of Leicester City – and the Chelsea head coach has repeated that process at Cobham over the past two weeks.

‘We used this international break to try something new for the future that we can probably use, and also we did defensive work to find some balance,' the Blues head coach explained in his pre-match press conference.

'That doesn’t mean we’re not defending well because in my opinion, having analysed the games, in the first match against City we didn’t concede many chances. In the second game, except for in the last 20 minutes of the first half, we didn’t concede anything.

'In the last game against Palace, it was quite clear we deserved to win. So I try to focus on these things and the main target is how we can improve players because improving players means you’re probably going to improve the team.’

Maresca will have to do without three members of his squad for the game on the south coast, with Malo Gusto, Reece James and Romeo Lavia unavailable.

‘Malo is still out and he is not available for tomorrow’s game,' our head coach explained. ‘Romeo looks very close [to returning], hopefully for the next game. Unfortunately, Reece needs more time.’

In more positive news, Wesley Fofana and Cole Palmer, who withdrew from international duty, have trained at Cobham this week and are available for selection.

Goal contributions in 2024/25

The history

Chelsea are undefeated against Bournemouth since back-to-back losses on the road and at Stamford Bridge in 2019.

Prior to a 4-0 away defeat that January, the Blues had lost only once at the Vitality Stadium – previously known as Dean Court – in all competitions stretching back to Division Two in 1988.

Promisingly, the Blues have been beaten in just two of our six league trips to the south coast.

Chelsea had the better of a bad-tempered 0-0 meeting a year ago in terms of possession, corners and chances, and the woodwork also rescued the Cherries in addition to goalkeeper Neto denying Palmer a late match-winner.

The 3-1 win at the end of the 2022/23 season was a more lively affair that had travelling fans chorused ‘We’re winning away…’ as the Blues succeeded on the road for the first time in months.

Conor Gallagher nodded in N’Golo Kante’s cross to open the scoring inside 10 minutes, but Marias Vina levelled for the hosts soon after.

Two subs combined to restore the Londoners’ supremacy, Benoit Badiashile converting Hakim Ziyech’s free-kick before Joao Felix, two minutes off the bench, calmly delivered the coup de grace.

Know this…

Palmer is the first Premier League player since Manchester United's Paul Pogba in 2021 to rack up four assists across the opening three games of a top-flight campaign.

Madueke has the third-most shots on target this season in the Premier League with six, one ahead of Jackson. Three of those lead to his hat-trick against Wolves at Molineux.

No team has scored more from counter-attacks than Chelsea this season (two) but only Wolves (three) have conceded more goals from set-plays than the Londoners (two).

Bournemouth's fightback from two goals in the 87th minute against Everton is the latest a Premier League team has ever trailed by that margin and gone on to claim all three points.

And finally, Caicedo’s 50.5m strike against the Cherries in May, from what is almost certainly a club-record distance, was his first goal for the Blues.