Venue: Deepdale Saturday, January 23rd 2010 Kick-Off:12:45

Preston play host to Chelsea early this afternoon in this FA Cup 4th Round fixture, which can be seen Live on ITV with a 12:45pm Kick Off Time.

Preston come in todays game on the back of a 4-2 away defeat to Bristol City and face an even tougher task today against an in form Chelsea side. Preston will take some confidence from the fact they managed to score 7 goals past Colchester in the previous round of this tournament although considering todays opponnents im sure they will be happy to just keep the game tight and hope to nick it by the odd goal.

Chelsea are in red hot form at the moment, despite missing some key players who are away in the African Cup. Anelka has been leading from the front recently and will again be looking to get his name on the score sheet today. Chelsea have scored an incredible 12 goals in their last 2 games and todays fixture offers them a very realistic chance of grabbing even more.

Preston Team News

Newly appointed Manager, Darren Ferguson will be missing Paul Parry and Barry Nicholson for todays game as both are out injured. However, Youl Mawene has been doing well in training recently and looks likely to be back in the starting lineup.

Chelsea Team News

Ashley Cole picked up a knock to his ankle last time out and will miss out in todays game. Yury Zhirkov will come in at left back to replace him having impressed in the game against Sunderland having come on from the bench. Goal keeper, Petr Cech has been given the day off so Hilario will start in between the sticks. Michael Essien has been ruled out for up to six weeks following a knee injury he picked up whilst on duty with Ghana in the African Cup of Nations.

Summary

No shock to see Chelsea priced up as very short favourites by the bookmakers, but this offers us no value at all from a betting point of view, despite Chelsea seemingly having to have a very bad day at the office to lose this one. Preston will certainly give it 100% today and could possibly snatch a goal, especially with a packed out Deepdale crowd behind them.

Dave's Prediction:

Over 2.5 Goals at odds of 1.72 with with Skybet