Chelsea will be looking for a 10th Premier League victory in a row when they travel to Sunderland on Wednesday.
Diego Costa scored the only goal of the game at the weekend as the Blues extended their winning streak against West Brom.
With Liverpool and Manchester City both slipping up in recent weeks, only Arsenal are managing to keep pace __with the leaders.
At the other end of the table, Sunderland have won three of their last five matches, but slipped back to the bottom after a 3-0 defeat at Swansea on Saturday.
"We've been there for most of it so it's not something new to us," said manager David Moyes afterwards.
"But we aren't back at square one, because we've got ourselves back in __with a fighting chance and a few weeks ago we didn't have that."
Sunderland have won their last two home games in the league, and haven't won three in a row at the Stadium of Light since February 2012.
Team news
Sunderland will be without long-term absentees Duncan Watmore (knee) and Lee Cattermole (hip) while Paddy McNair remains out with a knee injury.
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Fabio Borini (groin) and Jack Rodwell (hamstring) are also unavailable and Didier N'Dong misses the match through suspension.
Chelsea could have defender John Terry available after a month out with injury.
Match stats
Sunderland beat Chelsea 3-2 in May having won just once against the Blues in their previous 10 Premier League games (D1 L8).
Chelsea haven't lost successive Premier League games against Sunderland since March 2001.
Jermain Defoe has scored against Chelsea with four different Premier League clubs, the only player to have done this (West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth and Sunderland).
Defoe has either scored (eight) or assisted (two) 10 of Sunderland's 14 Premier League goals so far in 2016-17 (71%).
This fixture has seen 111 goals scored in 30 Premier League games, averaging at 3.7 goals per game.
The Black Cats have kept just one clean sheet in their last 16 Premier League games.
Chelsea are unbeaten in their last 15 Premier League games played on a Wednesday, last losing to QPR in January 2013 (W8 D7).
Chelsea are on a run of four successive Premier League away victories and will be looking to win five in a row on the road for the first time since April 2015.
Paul Merson's prediction
Didier Ndong will be a miss for Sunderland through suspension as he is the engine in their team. They had a shocking result against Swansea and I can't see anything other than a Chelsea win.
Chelsea are having to work hard for their wins and West Brom were a bit unlucky not to get anything at the weekend. But Chelsea have champagne moments in their team and they are rock solid at the back.
PAUL PREDICTS: 0-2 (Sky Bet odds 11/2)
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