Aston Villa vs Chelsea LIVE: Premier League result, final score and reaction tonight

21 mins: Chelsea’s high line is affording Villa lots of space in behind the defenders. Douglas Luiz boots a long ball over the top and Ollie Watkins runs it down. Trevoh Chalobah tracks back and positions himself inside of the striker. Watkins cuts back onto his right foot and shoots but Chalobah sticks out a leg and blocks the effort.

This has been a good contest so far.

19 mins: Jacob Ramsey gets into the space behind Reece James on Villa’s left side. He drives into the box and gets tackled by Thiago. Ramsey goes down and wants a penalty but the referee waves for play to continue.

Chelsea come forward and float an aerial pass over the head of Matt Targett. It drops for Mason Mount who shoots but Targett recovers in time to put in a good block.

16 mins: Chelsea defend the corner easily enough and then sweep down the left wing. The Blues have focused their early attacks from the wide areas as Villa have a compact defensive shape leaving space on the wings. Alonso puts a cross into the box but Villa come away with the ball.

13 mins: Morgan Sanson and Marcos Alonso get into a tussle on Villa’s right side. Alonso loses the ball and tries to win it back but bundles the Aston Villa man over in the process.

Villa work the free kick into Buendia who flicks an aerial pass into the box for Ings. He brings the ball down and shoots but Thiago is there again to block it behind for a corner.

10 mins: Chance! Buendia wins the ball just inside his own half and Villa sweep forward on the counter-attack. Watkins and Ings are in front of him and he slides Watkins into the left side of the box. Ings breaks away from Thiago Silva but the Chelsea defender intercepts the pass as it comes across.

6 mins: Douglas Luiz shifts the ball around Trevoh Chalobah who mistimes his tackle and takes out the Aston Villa man.

Chelsea win the ball and send Reece James forward on the right wing. He plays it inside to Antonio Rudiger who works it across the pitch to Marcos Alonso. Alonso sends a cross into the box and Douglas Luiz puts it out of play.

3 mins: It’s been a positive start from Aston Villa. They’re passing the ball around confidently and getting stuck into the midfield battle. Olliw Watkins wins the ball inside Chelsea’s half and the ball comes loose to Danny Ings. He knocks it over to Buendia who slides a pass into the box but it’s too far away from Ings as he runs in behind and Mendy comes to scoop up the ball.

Kick off: Chelsea get the match underway at Villa Park. Thye knock the ball into midfield but lose possession to the Villa press. The home side work the ball back to Emi Martinez who fires a ball over to Matty Cash on the right wing. He plays it to Emiliano Buendia who shifts inside and slots a pass over to the opposite wing for Matt Targett. The left-back gets up the pitch and swings a cross into the Chelsea box but sends it straight into the hands of Edouard Mendy.

Here come the teams. Chelsea need to win after drawing 0-0 with Wolves last time out. At the start of the game they trail Manchester City by nine points and if they have any chance of lifting the Premier League title at the end of the season they can’t afford to drop too far behind the leaders.

Chelsea have not lost a Boxing Day league game outside of London since a 2-0 defeat at Notts County in 1991.

Though they have dropped seven points from winning positions in their last eight Premier League games.

Six of the 12 Premier League goals conceded by Chelsea this season have come via set-pieces