It's Saturday tea-time football at the Bridge this weekend. After a two-week break, club historian Rick Glanvill, club statistician Paul Dutton and former Chelsea player Clive Walker are made to wait a few hours longer than some for the return of domestic football.

Two weeks ago - it seems longer - Andre Villas-Boas expressed his delight at the high rate of chances his team created and took in the 5-1 win at Bolton.

It was Chelsea's biggest league win since the 6-0 at Wigan in August 2010, and it took to a total of 5,996 league goals, in the 96th season stretched over 106 years. Who better to score the historic 6,000th when it comes than Frank Lampard, who netted his fifth hat-trick for the Blues at the Reebok.

Frank has now scored 11 times in all competitions against the Trotters, more than any other side except Aston Villa. He has seven against Everton - another whipping boy; Didier Drogba, likely to start in Fernando Torres' absence through suspension, has seven in ten league games against the Mersey Blues (and ten strikes against Bolton).

In his press conference, the Chelsea manager was keen to caution that Everton are on a five-match unbeaten run on the Fulham Road, meaning that Chelsea's last win against them here came in a 3-0 courtesy of Lampard, Drogba and Essien in April 2006, when Lee Carsley was sent off.

Villas-Boas will have studied the Toffees' recent games against Manchester City and Liverpool and noted their aggressive style of play. They were handed five cautions against the Mancunians but managed to spread them round different players including Jack Rodwell, who was deputed to man-mark City's creative hub, David Silva. Against Liverpool the young midfielder was shown a red card (since rescinded) for a lunge against the Reds' danger man, Luis Suarez.

David Moyes' side will be very organised too and will not give up lightly, especially as they have scored late equalisers at the Bridge on two of their last four league visits.

Our frequent encounters in various cups have gone either way in recent years and, of course, we meet again in the fourth round of the League Cup at Goodison Park the week after next.

Scoring first is generally a pointer to success with Chelsea: we have scored first in four matches this season and won all of them. However, six of our last nine meetings in all tournaments have ended in draws.

Whereas Chelsea have won our last two league matches, Everton have lost both theirs. More surprisingly for two traditionally solid defensive units, neither side has managed more than one clean sheet so far.

This is only Everton's third away game as their visit to Tottenham in August was suspended as a result of the riots. They have won one and lost one so far and scored just the one goal.


- Match preview by chelseafc.com