Chelsea today make the trip that has brought them the least joy in recent seasons, when they head to Villa Park with the aim of consolidating their lead in the English Premier League.
In the past 10 seasons, Chelsea have won only once at Villa Park, making it their least successful ground. In the same period they have won twice at both Manchester United and Arsenal and three times at Liverpool.
Chelsea came unstuck on their last Premier League away trip, losing 3-1 at Wigan, which leaves them with something to prove as they return to their bogey ground. The doubts were reinforced by a subsequent poor away performance, at Apoel Nicosia in the Champions League, even though they won that match 1-0.
The positive for Chelsea is that their solitary win at Villa Park in the past 10 seasons came on their latest visit in February, when they won 1-0 in Guus Hiddink's first game in charge during his three-month stint with the London club. Before that, however, you had to go back to the 1988-89 season to find Chelsea's last win at Villa, and in the intervening period they had drawn six and lost three of their trips there.
The high number of draws and Chelsea's low win rate at Villa in the past 10 seasons inevitably points to this being a low-scoring fixture - eight of the 10 meetings have had fewer than 2.5 goals. Chelsea have failed to score on three of their last five visits and they will be expecting Villa to make life tough for them again.
Under Martin O'Neill, however, Villa have had difficulty beating the big four. Their only home win in that category was two seasons ago, when they beat Chelsea 2-0, and overall their home record against the big four is won one, drawn five, lost six. Again, there is a low-scoring trend - seven out of 12 have had fewer than 2.5 goals.