Aston Villa vs Chelsea LIVE: Premier League result, final score and reaction tonight
Follow all the fallout from Villa Park
Follow all the action as Aston Villa host Chelsea in the Premier League this Boxing Day.
Steven Gerrard will be forced to watch from afar after Aston Villa’s head coach tested positive for Covid-19. Villa will hope his absence doesn’t detract from their momentum, having won four of their six games since Gerrard took charge, with their only two defeats coming against Manchester City and Liverpool. That upturn in form has seen Villa return to the top half of the table and they will hope to take advantage of Chelsea’s recent inconsistency this afternoon.
After such a brilliant start to the season, Thomas Tuchel’s side have faltered in recent weeks due to a combination of attacking absences and wasteful finishing. Back-to-back draws against Everton and Wolves have left the Blues six points adrift of Manchester City in the title race, although a 2-0 victory over Brentford in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals helped to regain some of their momentum. Follow all the latest updates below:
Chelsea come from behind to beat Aston Villa and stay in title hunt as returning Romelu Lukaku shines
Aston Villa vs Chelsea result and five things we learned as Romelu Lukaku fires Blues to crucial win 
Man City extinguish Leicester fightback to go six points clear with thrilling Premier League victory
Man City vs Leicester: Pep Guardiola suggests strike to highlight player welfare concerns
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola suggested a players’ strike may be the only way to call serious attention to welfare issues amid a Premier League fixture pile-up.
Guardiola says he agrees with Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson who spoke out this week, that player welfare is not taken seriously enough by the people who run the game.
The intensity of the Christmas schedule, and the burden it places on players, is an annual subject of debate but this year the issue is being exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pep Guardiola suggests strike to highlight player welfare concerns
The Manchester City boss says ‘business is more important than the welfare’ for the likes of FIFA and the Premier League.
Man City vs Leicester: Leicester on the road
Leicester have already equalled last season’s final tally of three league away defeats. They have lost all four Premier League games this season against teams in the top five by an aggregate score of 10-1.
The Foxes have scored and conceded in their last 15 Premier League away matches, the longest such run of any top-flight team since Burnley did so in 16 matches between April 1961 to March 1962.
Man City vs Leicester: Three teams in title race says Cancelo
Joao Cancelo believes that Manchester City are in a three team title race with Liverpool and Chelsea but says that his side are in ‘good shape’ at the moment and can push ahead with their claim for the Premier League title. He said:
“We are a very strong team and we are in good shape at the moment. It’s important that we are all giving our best level so we can achieve our goals at the end of the season which are winning as many trophies as possible.
“We have the Premier League, the Champions League and soon the FA Cup to fight for until the end of the season. I think Liverpool and Chelsea are both very strong sides and they are going to be contenders with us in the title race.
“They have a different football style than us, but both sides are really strong. I think the three teams are showing that we are the main candidates to win the Premier League trophy.”
Man City vs Leicester: City’s record breaking year
Manchester City are the first top-flight club to win 34 league games in a calendar year. They are top of the Premier League table on Christmas Day for the third time, after 2011-12 and 2017-1 when they went on to win the title in both of those seasons.
City’s run of eight Premier League wins is the longest current streak of any team. They have scored 24 goals and conceded just three during this period and they have scored a club record 106 top-flight goals in 2021.
Man City vs Leicester: Football on the front line in the Covid culture war
The tweet is as stupid as it is jarring. “I am a broken man,” it said. “Juergen (sic) Klopp has killed my love… LFC you’re dead to me.”
The Twitter account in question has as its profile picture an illustration of a syringe as the Pied Piper leading a crowd of surgically-masked children.
To where is anyone’s guess: according to doctors and scientists, the destination of vaccinated youngsters is safety from the most extreme effects of Covid-19. In the mad mind of the author of the tweet, the boys and girls are heading for their doom.
Jurgen Klopp has been, if we are to believe a further tweet, “obviously told by his owners to endorse the vaccine.” Precisely why is not explained.
Are Fenway Sports Group part of the shadowy cabal that is using the pandemic to curtail the freedoms of individuals? Or is there a more straightforward answer?
Football on the front line in the Covid culture war
The sport was always going to be a battleground in the philosophical conflict that is dividing the country, writes Tony Evans
Man City vs Leicester: Maddison on City
Leicester’s James Maddison has been speaking about today’s match against Manchester City and joked that it would be a ‘nice easy fixture’ for his team today. He said:
It’s a nice easy fixture on Boxing Day, isn’t it?
"It’s another tough place to go but we can take the positives from the first half [at Liverpool]. We can also take the positives from winning there (5-2 in September 2020) last season and try and get something from the game."
Man City vs Leicester: Team changes
Pep Guardiola makes two changes to the Manchester City team that defeated Newcastle 4-0 last time out. Ilkay Gundogan and Fernandinho both come into the starting line-up with Gabriel Jesus and Rodri dropping out. Jesus makes the bench but Rodri is out of the matchday squad.
Brendan Rodgers meanwhile makes six changes to the Leicester team that lost to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday night.
Jamie Vardy, Wilfred Ndidi and Baboukary Soumare drop to the bench but there is no place in the squad for Caglar Soyuncu and Ricardo Pereira who are injured. Patson Daka is also out.
Marc Albrighton, Daniel Amartey and Jannik Vestegaard are all recalled to the back line and there are starts for Ayoze, Perez, Adelmola Lookman and Kelechi Iheanacho.
Man City vs Leicester: Line-ups
Man City XI: Ederson, Cancelo, Dias, Laporte, Zinchenko, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez, Sterling
Leicester XI: Schmeichel, Albrighton, Amartey, Vestegaard, Thomas, Perez, Tielemans, Dewsbury-Hall, Lookman, Maddison, Iheanacho
Man City vs Leicester: Premier League standings
The unpredictability of the spreading coronavirus cases means that only seven of the 20 Premier League team have completed their full compliment of 18 fixtures.
Tottenham and Burnley have only played 15 games each - the lowest amount of any team in the top flight.
In terms of standings Manchester City lead the way with 44 points from 18 games and have a three point lead over closest rivals Liverpool who have also played 18 matches but have had their fixture against Leeds today postponed.
Leicester City are ninth after 16 matches but could jump ahead of Wolves into eighth if the manage to defeat City today.
Aston Villa vs Chelsea: Covid leads to more postponements
Aston Villa have released a statement confirming that their Premier League fixture against Leeds on Tuesday 28th December has been postponed due to the number of positive Covid cases in Leeds United’s squad.
Villa have Covid concerns of their own as manager Steven Gerrard will miss today’s fixture against Chelsea after testing positive for the virus himself.
Today’s fixture is still due to go ahead though.
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