Chelsea welcomes Bournemouth to Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night, as both teams are desperate to round off 2025 with a win in the Premier League.
[The Blues are fresh off a 2-1 home defeat to Aston Villa](https://thesportstoday.com/2025/12/27/watkins-double-stuns-chelsea-as-villa-equals-111-year-record/) at the weekend and will hope to secure a win to ease the pressure around the Bridge.
The Cherries suffered a heavy 4-1 home loss to Brentford last time out.
**Match preview**
Having lost three of their first five Premier League home games against Bournemouth (W2), Chelsea are now unbeaten in their last three against the Cherries at Stamford Bridge (W2 D1).
Bournemouth are winless in their last eight Premier League matches against Chelsea (D4 L4), with the last two ending as draws; only two of the first 15 meetings between the teams had been drawn.
This is just the second time Chelsea have faced an opponent twice in the same month in the Premier League, previously drawing twice with Manchester United in December 1998.
All eight of Bournemouth’s Premier League goals at Stamford Bridge versus Chelsea have been scored in the second half; they’ve had 39 shots in the first half of eight games without scoring.
Chelsea lost 2-0 at Ipswich in their final league game of 2024. They’ve not lost their last league game in consecutive calendar years since 1990/1991, both times against Luton Town.
The Cherries have won their final league game in just one of the last seven calendar years (D1 L5), beating Cardiff City 3-0 in December 2021.
When the Blues have ended their calendar year with a home league game, they’ve lost just one of their last 22 matches (W13 D8), losing 3-1 to Aston Villa in December 2011.
João Pedro has been involved in five goals in his team’s final Premier League match of the calendar year in the last two years; in both games for Brighton, he scored two goals and assisted one against Spurs in 2023 and got two assists against Aston Villa in 2024.
Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo has already scored at Anfield and Old Trafford in the Premier League this season. A goal here would make him only the fourth player to score away at each of Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United in a single Premier League campaign, after Kevin Nolan in 2001/02, Gabriel Agbonlahor in 2006/07, and Robin van Persie in 2011/12.
**Team news**
**Chelsea**
Enzo Maresca [confirmed](https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/enzo-maresca-chelsea-team-news-bournemouth-december-2025) in his press conference that the host will be without Jorrel Hato after he sustained an injury in the halftime warm-up against Newcastle United last weekend, while Wesley Fofana is in contention to feature after he was an unused sub against Villa.
Marc Cucurella will be assessed after the Spaniard was substituted in Villa’s defeat with a hamstring complaint.
Long-term absentees Levi Colwill, Dario Essugo and Romeo Lavia are sidelined with injuries.
**Bournemouth**
Tyler Adams, Ben Gannon-Doak, Veljko Milosavljevic and Matai Akinmboni are unavailable for the trip to the capital with injuries.
**Predicted line-ups**
**Chelsea**: Sanchez, James, Fofana, Chalobah, Gusto, Fernandez, Caicedo, Neto, Palmer, Garnacho, João Pedro.
**Bournemouth**: Petrovic, Jimenez, Diakite, Senesi, Truffert, Scott, Cook, Brooks, Kluivert, Semenyo, Evanilson.