Date: Saturday 12th September 2026
Venue: Stamford Bridge
Kick-off: 15:00 BST
After Wednesday night’s League Cup madness against Leeds, Chelsea return to Stamford Bridge for the sort of fixture that would have looked comfortable a few years ago but now feels like an episode of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here.
Hull City arrive in West London sitting above Chelsea in the table. The newly promoted side are unbeaten so far and have already discovered the Premier League’s greatest secret: you don’t actually need £1.2 billion worth of players to pick up points.
Chelsea, meanwhile, can score goals for fun. Defending them remains a work in progress. The tactical approach so far this season appears to be “put a right-back somewhere unexpected and see what happens”. Sometimes it works brilliantly. Sometimes it resembles a social experiment.
Recent history doesn’t offer much comfort either. Chelsea haven’t beaten a newly promoted side in their last four attempts, while Hull seem blissfully unaware that they’re supposed to be struggling relegation candidates. Add Caicedo’s absence into the mix and there is every chance Hull’s midfield spends the afternoon wandering through acres of space wondering whether they’re accidentally playing against training cones.
The good news is that Chelsea have never lost in 10 Premier League meetings against Hull. The bad news is that we’ve said “Chelsea have never…” about quite a lot of things over the last couple of years, usually about ten minutes before watching the record disappear.
With Palmer creating chances, Rogers and Joao Pedro running alongside, and Stamford Bridge demanding entertainment, goals feel inevitable.
At both ends.
Possible Match Timeline
8 mins: Chelsea score. Palmer slips a gorgeous through ball to Joao Pedro, who finishes confidently. Stamford Bridge briefly forgets last weekend happened.
15 mins: Chelsea score again. A corner somehow falls to Colwill, who bundles it in via three deflections and a mild violation of physics.
28 mins: Hull pull one back. A simple pass through midfield bypasses six Chelsea players and many hours of defensive coaching.
41 mins: Hull equalise. A cross into the box is watched admiringly by every blue shirt before a Tiger heads home.
Half-time: Boos? Applause? Existential confusion? A bit of all three.
57 mins: Hull come out the stronger side as Chelsea try to baton down the hatches.
68 mins: Caicedo’s absence becomes painfully obvious as Hull stroll through midfield for the seventeenth time and make it 2-3.
82 mins: BlueCo announce a new strategic vision involving eight more attacking midfielders and absolutely no centre-halves.
89 mins: Penalty! Martinez has a job to do and Chelsea don’t have a lot of time left to turn things around….
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into today’s game, Chelsea manager, Xabi Alonso, says “[Hull] deserve to be where they are. They’ve played against Manchester United, Coventry and Aston Villa, and they’ve done it really well. They have shown that they have built a very clear idea of what they want, how they want to compete, with the players that were already there last year and a few other players that came in. But the mentality is that they want to fight with everything to get involved. I guess that is to stay in the Premier League, and they are doing well. Tomorrow is the chance for us to try to beat them.
We have a clear idea that it’s going to be hard each game and the context of each game is different. We have scored so well in all the games. We will have to change, for sure, our approach of the game. But knowing that we are in the process of many things, I think that we are still in the early days to know what this team, for sure, is going to be. I think that we will develop many things. We will develop when important players are joining and they are able to play. We are having this feeling that we are competing well, but there are some things that we can do better, for sure. Tomorrow we are prepared, we are ready. There is not going to be complacency from us. We have full respect for them and we know that it will be hard to beat them. If we do things well, if we complete and play at our level, I think we will have a good chance.”
Hull manager, Sergej Jakirović, meanwhile, says “For me, to get promotion from the Championship to the Premier League is a big, big success. So, well done on this award, but very well done for the promotion from last year. What they are doing is great. Tomorrow we are prepared, we are ready. There is not going to be any complacency from us. We’ll have full respect for them, and we know that it will be hard to beat them. But if we do things well, if we compete and we play well, then we have a good chance.
[Chelsea] have very, very big quality and it will be very, very demanding for us. Tough, but we will see. Like I said, it’s a great challenge ahead of us, and we will try to play.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Chelsea, Jordan Henderson (wrist), Marco Palestra (unspecified), Emmanuel Emegha (muscle) and Moises Caicedo remain out. Levi Colwill should be available.
For Hull, Ilyas Ansah (back), Jack Butland (shoulder), Elliot Matazo (knee), Darko Gyabi (thigh), Charlie Hughes and Hidemasa Morita (both groin) all remain out. Tim Iroegbunam (groin), Brooke Norton-Cuffy (calf) and Paddy McNair (foot), should be available.
TEAMS
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Martinez; Acheampong, Lacroix, Colwill; Neto, James, Lavia, Hato; Rogers, Palmer; Pedro
HULL (Possible line-up): Tzolakis; Ajayi, Egan, Mendy; Coyle, Slater, Gourna-Douath, Giles; Belloumi, Stroud; McBurnie
LAST SEASON
N/A
CURRENT FORM (PL)
CHELSEA: WWL
HULL: WWD
OTHER STUFF
Chelsea have never lost in 10 Premier League meetings with HullHull have never won in 18 league visits to ChelseaChelsea haven’t won in their last 4 games against newly promoted sidesChelsea have won their last 2 games at Stamford BridgeHull have kept clean sheets in all 3 Premier League games played so farChelsea are 19 games without a clean sheet in the Premier League
PREDICTION
Sportsmole: Chelsea 2-1 Hull City