Middlesbrough v Chelsea: Back 13/2 Bet Builder at the Riverside

• Back Blues to edge Boro in first leg at 7/52.40

• Get 13/27.50 on cards & corners Bet Builder

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Blues should have enough

A strange and at times frankly poor season for Chelsea could take a decidedly positive turn if they see-off Middlesbrough as expected to reach the Carabao Cup final.

Boro host the Blues at the Riverside on Tuesday, having held Aston Villa for 87 minutes until a hugely fortunate Matty Cash winner in their FA Cup game at the weekend.

Chelsea thumped Preston 4-0 but this could be harder work if Michael Carrick's side can reproduce the effort from the Villa game, but they've lost four in five at home now and Chelsea really should get some form of first-leg advantage.

At lot will depend on Mauricio Pochettino's selection, and their crazy 3-2 win at Luton came after four straight away defeats, so they're not their best on the road.

But they're still 4/71.57 favourites to win the match for a reason with the sheer depth of their squad - leaving Boro as 4/15.00 outsiders to win the first leg.

Chelsea have scored a few goals of late but this being a first leg and Boro being at home I think there's a touch of value in going for a rather narrower win.

Just two of Boro's 14 home games this season have had four goals or more in, and given the stakes then this could well be another.

Count on Chelsea corners & cards

Chelsea will dominate and you'd imagine it'll be a similar story to the Villa game - where the visitors had 12 corners.

The Blues may not get that many, but they've plenty of talent out wide to run at the full-backs and win corners - so backing over 6.5 Chelsea corners at 6/52.20 seems worthwhile.

We'll throw in over 1.5 Middlesbrough cards at 8/151.53 due to the sheer volume of possession the visitors should enjoy and the way the hosts will be going all-out to stop them.

But Chelsea's cards are also worth looking at, as Villa picked up five as Boro battled them all of the way, and this game could be similar.

Chelsea have had a number of outings with plenty of bookings, and with three of their last five games seeing them have three or more, we'll back over 2.5 Chelsea cards at 17/102.70.

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