The champions, who will welcome skipper John Terry back to their line-up following his recovery from back surgery, head across London aiming to cut Manchester United's lead at the top to three points for at least 24 hours.

United take on Tottenham at White Hart Lane on Sunday and Mourinho has warned his side that they cannot afford to give Sir Alex Ferguson's on-form squad the opportunity to pull further ahead at the top.

"In this moment we can't let the six points (gap) become eight or nine," said Mourinho, who is conscious that the title battle is rapidly approaching the closing stretch with 13 rounds of matches left.

"We need to keep it at six or let the six go to three or four."

A 3-0 win over Blackburn in midweek suggest the cutting edge that Chelsea lacked over Christmas and New Year is returning.

Despite that match also seeing Ashley Cole added to the Stamford Bridge casualty list, the England defender is expected to play again this season despite his knee injury.

Morale is on the up at Charlton following a mini-revival in the fortunes of Alan Pardew's relegation-battling side.

An away win at Portsmouth was followed on Wednesday by a battling draw at Bolton, and Pardew believes those results will have an important psychological boost for the upcoming meetings with Chelsea and Manchester United.

"It was a real lion-hearted performance at Bolton and it puts us into a position where we can attack the next two games with a little bit of freedom," said Pardew.

After fielding a weakened team in the 4-0 midweek win over Watford, Manchester United will be back at full strength for the trip to Spurs, with Ferguson facing a difficult selection dilemma in attack.

Louis Saha is fit again but Henrik Larsson's rapidly developing understanding with Wayne Rooney means the Frenchman is not guaranteed an instant return to the starting line-up.

Rooney set up Larsson to score his first Premiership goal since his loan move from Helsingborg during the romp against Watford and the Swede paid tribute to the vision of his teammate.

"As long as you move well when you have a player like Wayne around you're always likely to get chances," Larsson said.

"I enjoy playing with the likes of Wayne and Cristiano Ronaldo immensely. At 35-years-old I didn't expect to get this kind of chance again. So to be here now playing alongside them is fantastic."

Liverpool face Everton in a lunchtime derby on Saturday hoping to continue the recent run which has given them an outside chance of forcing their way back into the title shake-up.

Revenge is also on the menu after the 3-0 humiliation Everton inflicted on their neighbours at Goodison Park earlier this season.

"It was a really bad day for us in the last game with Everton and it's an experience I hope I never have to go through again," said the Reds' Dutch striker, Dirk Kuyt, who scored a spectacular long-range strike in the midweek win over West Ham.

"It was really important to win at West Ham after beating Chelsea because we knew we had to maintain our momentum.

"No matter how you play, at this stage of a season, you have to just think always about winning. It seems every game we are playing is really important for us, and it's the same this weekend."

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez is hoping that he might be able to include Argentina midfielder Javier Mascherano in his squad following his transfer from West Ham.

That depends on clearance from the Premier League but Liverpool will definitely be without Momo Sissoko, who needs more time to recover from the shoulder injury that has kept him sidelined since November.
Fixtures
(1500 GMT kick-off unless stated)
Saturday
Aston Villa v West Ham, Blackburn v Sheffield Utd, Charlton v Chelsea, Fulham v Newcastle, Liverpool v Everton (1245), Manchester City v Reading, Middlesbrough v Arsenal (1715), Watford v Bolton, Wigan Athletic v Portsmouth
Sunday
Tottenham v Manchester Utd (1600)