Preview: Chelsea Women vs. Leicester Women - prediction, team news, lineups

Chelsea Women will look to maintain their unbeaten start to the season when they play host to Leicester Women on Sunday.

The visitors, meanwhile, will be looking to end their poor run of form after failing to win any of their last five Women's Super League matches.

Match preview

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Chelsea are yet to lose a competitive game this season after they continued their impressive run of form with victories over Liverpool and Paris FC in the WSL and Champions League respectively.

Lauren James scored a hat-trick last weekend to help her side cruise to a 5-1 victory against the Reds, which ensured that Emma Hayes's side maintained their three-point lead at the top of the WSL table.

Another comfortable win followed in midweek, as Sam Kerr registered a hat-trick before Sophie Ingle found the net to secure a 4-1 win over Paris FC, moving Chelsea onto four points after two Champions League group games.

With both of those victories taking place on home turf, the Blues have now recorded nine consecutive home victories since losing to Barcelona in April.

Chelsea will certainly be confident about continuing their impressive home form after scoring 30 goals across their last four meetings with Leicester, while also keeping clean sheets in each of those victories.

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Leicester, who occupy seventh place, have only added one point to their tally since beginning the WSL campaign with seven points from their opening three matches.

However, that point did arrive last weekend, as they played out a 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur to bring an end to a three-game losing run.

Leicester were unable to secure a win in their midweek League Cup meeting with Manchester City despite taking a two-goal thanks to efforts from Janice Cayman and Sophie Howard.

Although the Foxes had to settle for a 2-2 draw, they picked up a bonus point after goalkeeper Janina Leitzig made three crucial saves to help Leicester win the subsequent shootout, vindicating Willie Kirk's decision to send her on in the final stages of the contest.

The Foxes will now turn their focus to Sunday's difficult fixture against the reigning WSL champions, and while they are the obvious underdogs, the visitors may be able to draw inspiration from the fact that they have avoided defeat in three of their four competitive away games this season (W2, D1).

Team News

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Chelsea captain Millie Bright will miss a third consecutive game through injury, and she will have the chance to work on her recovery over the next couple of weeks after withdrawing from the England squad.

The Blues are also unable to call upon Melanie Leupolz, Katerina Svitkova, Catarina Macario and Guro Reiten due to injury.

Zecira Musovic, Eve Perisset, Aggie Beever-Jones and Ingle could all come into the side for Sunday's league fixture.

As for Leicester, they have reported no new injury concerns, but remain without the services of Shannon O'Brien and Deanne Rose.

After goalkeeper Lize Kop was given some valuable game time in midweek, Leitzig will come back into the side for Sunday's contest.

Jutta Rantala, Hannah Cain and Lena Petermann are all expected to return to the lineup after dropping down to the bench in midweek.

Chelsea Women possible starting lineup:

Musovic; Perisset, Mjelde, Carter, Charles; Cuthbert, Ingle; Beever-Jones, Kirby, James; Kerr

Leicester Women possible starting lineup:

Leitzig; Bott, Howard, Green, Nevin; Whelan, Rantala; Cayman, Tierney, Cain; Petermann

We say: Chelsea Women 4-1 Leicester Women

Chelsea have won seven of their nine competitive matches this season, and having made light work of Leicester in recent meetings, we think that the league leaders will ease to another comfortable victory on Sunday.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.