Chelsea v Tottenham: No winners at the Bridge

Tired Chelsea need a spark

Thomas Tuchel admitted his side looked, and indeed were, feeling tired after their 1-1 draw with Brighton on Tuesday, which panned out as predicted in our preview.

The Blues will need a spark against their big London rivals though, as these games are always tasty and tiredness will be no excuse for both sets of fans attending. It may again be tough though as they come to terms with their title challenge being over.

Chelsea will soon have to start looking over their shoulders in the top four race if results continue, but they’ll fancy a bounce back here having won five of their last six league games against Spurs while keeping five clean sheets.

And three of those wins have come this season, with Chelsea looking a class above in all of those, so even after drawing their last three league games at home, three points is a must here to get them back on track.

Conte out to claim landmark win

No former Chelsea manager has ever come back and won a Premier League game at Stamford Bridge, but Antonio Conte may feel this is the perfect time to succeed where the likes of Mourinho, Benitez and Ancelotti have all failed.

Eight former managers have played 20 games at the Bridge without success (D7 L13) and Conte has already spoken of the gulf in class between the sides after facing Chelsea in the Carabao Cup.

Spurs have just one win in 31 league games at Stamford Bridge (D10 L20), but Conte does at least know what it’s like to see Tottenham win there as he was Chelsea boss for that one victory in April 2018.

Eric Lamela was the last Spurs player to score against Chelsea as it’s now five games and 457 minutes since Tottenham found the net against them – they’ve never gone six games without a scoring against team in their history. They’d hate that slice of history to come against the Blues.

Coming back from the dead with two stoppage time goals to beat Leicester will give Conte’s men a huge boost though, so they’ll feel the timing could not be better to get some rare success from the trip to west London.

Can’t trust leggy Blues

Chelsea are short enough as 1.758/11 home fancies, especially with Tuchel’s honest comments about their current situation.

Spurs look huge at 5.14/1 and although you’d never want to trust them at Stamford Bridge, given their respective results this week you’d say this was heir best chance in a while to get a result.

Like their last game, though, I’ll be happier backing the draw at 4.03/1 between these two.

Spurs have had no luck scoring against Chelsea and even you do fancy a score draw, at 5.59/2 there’s not quite enough juice in that to stray away from the stalemate. As 0-0 is in play.

Another battle at the Bridge

Meeting between these two have been rather good natured of late – at least in terms of bookings but temperatures could rise in this one, especially if Spurs get a foothold in the game.

Referee Paul Tierney only showed one yellow in the reverse league fixture, but showed nine cards in his next two Chelsea games while brandishing eight yellows and a red in his last Spurs game.

Both sides will be up for it, but I fancy Tuchel to be firing Chelsea up to try and wake them up, but there’s a distinct possibility they step over the line somewhat.

Chelsea to get over 2.5 cards at 2.47/5 looks well worth backing.