As Bournemouth were relegated two seasons ago, this is their first visit to Stamford Bridge since just before Christmas 2020, when a VAR-awarded late winner from Dan Gosling – their second shot on target – ended their five-match losing league run. That was actually the third win from six league visits to the Bridge for Eddie Howe’s team, making them a proper bogey team for the Blues.

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The two sides had met only once on the Fulham Road in the old Football League days, during Chelsea’s storming run back to Division One in March 1989, when Gordon Durie and Graham Roberts (from the spot, inevitably) dispatched the visitors 2-0.

Pedro and Eden Hazard scored in both of our two Premier League victories against the Dorset club. On Boxing Day 2016 Antonio Conte’s league leaders swept them aside by three goals to nil. The 2-0 of September 2018, less comfortable than the scoreline suggested, came during Maurizio Sarri’s record start for a Premier League debutant coach. Pedro’s opportunism from the bench broke the deadlock against the deep-lying, counter-attacking visitors and Hazard’s arrowed shot added late gloss.

The games of Christmas past

Chelsea have not fulfilled a fixture on 27 December since losing at Arsenal in 2010, but prior to that it was an occasional match date on which memorable solo performances were usually to the fore.

The day after Boxing Day 1969 Peter Osgood accounted for four goals in a 5-1 thrashing of Crystal Palace against his favourite goalkeeper, John Jackson. Two years on to the day a goalkeeper emergency required utility outfield player David Webb to don the green jersey. Before kick-off the 1970 FA Cup-winner theatrically knelt before the Shed, pretending to pray, then kept a clean sheet in the 2-0 defeat of Ipswich.

Five Christmases later, on the way to promotion from Division Two, Eddie McCreadie’s young lions, inspired by a 20-year-old Ray Wilkins, saw off star-studded Fulham, Bobby Moore and George Best included. The 2-0 win was watched by the Bridge’s biggest crowd for a decade: 55,003. More recently, Mark Stein’s then-Premier League record run of nine goals in seven consecutive games began in a 3-1 loss at Southampton on 27 December 1993.

More than half the season to play

For decades the festive season has marked the 19th game of the campaign, the mid-point of the league. Articles would be written around whoever is top or bottom of the table at Christmas and pointers from the past that suggested their likely fate come May.

This year is very different, with clubs little more than a third of the way through their fixtures. The present set of games is still called Matchweek 17 but every club had one or two September matches postponed as a result of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing.

Currently sitting eighth in table, the Blues have 24 of the 38 league fixtures still to fulfil, one more than two clubs currently occupying a top-four place. History shows that Chelsea can often find a way to reach such a target.