Frank Lampard’s lot are favourites to win today’s top of the table clash, as was the case when Tottenham faced Manchester United and Manchester City earlier this season. However, it would take some degree of detachment to ignore the fact that Spurs are looking like a different beast this season, with The City game in particular demonstrating and extraordinary levels of discipline.
Chelsea might edge Spurs in the betting, but one cannot help but conclude this is based upon historical data. Right now, Mourinho is conceding fewer goals, and keeping marginally more clean sheets. Whereas Lampard’s charges are more likely to win corners and to score first.
Where Spurs look notably attractive is in the xG market, and if we compare the 5 goal scorers from both teams this season, then Tottenham look to have the edge.
Son Heung-Min is @13/2 for First Goalscorer, as is Half Time Draw Full Time Tottenham.
Yeah last week taught them a lot of how well we are at containing with rapier overloaded attacks. Im not sure if Maureen is going to play the same tactics for some reason.
They have improved at both ends from set pieces & corner kicks,scoring more at one end (Zouma 3) and keeping more clean sheets at the other end (Mendy,Silva,James,Zouma,Chillwell)
Chavs only know one way to play, the big question for them is can they keep us out.
I would get behind and pressure Chidwell who is like Rose was, fine going forward but defensively suspect.
Yes gone are the days when a team with high possession were the automatic winners, football is much more complicated now. After all just having the ball and passing it around a lot doesn’t necessarily alter the scoreline does it? Also its what a team does with the ball when it regains possession from the team that has had it most of the match, but not done an awful lot with it against a resolute defence, an incisive counter attack utilising world class players
that leads to a goal can take mere seconds.
Eventually a team that can have low possession but routinely win games begins to get a reputation as masters of the breakaway goal. This then sends a message of fear to any opposition that likes to try and dominate. Perhaps causing them to be more wary of their own style and perhaps not put their hearts and souls into pushing as hard as they’d like.
We’re winning this fixture. Not a problem.
If we don’t, I will leave this post up, and my update won’t be an apology.
Too close to call imo. May take a moment of brilliance from a world class player to win it. The onus is on Chelsea as the home side to win, and this could play into our hands. Might be a cagey affair with Chelsea mindful of our counter attacking abilities.
A lot has been discussed on here about the merits of possession and Jose’s style of play compared to other teams. If you look at the teams with the highest possession this season in a table form 1st Man City,2nd Chelsea 3rd Liverpool 4th Leeds 5th Man Utd 6th Shampton 7th Fulham and 8th Spurs. Off the 7 teams above Spurs with a higher possession rate 5 have lost more games. Possession means nothing ,it’s what you do with it ,is what counts.
The teams that do to THFC what we did to Man.City, are still proving a little tricky to break down but THFC are still 2nd highest scorers in PL & coupled with fewest conceded, hopefully those 2 trends continue today.
Obviously I want THFC to win but even a point would put them back on top of PL (+ gd).
So far this season Chelski have only won the matches you’d expect them to, against clubs you’d expect not to finish in top 10 so hopefully THFC will continue that trend for them.
Yeah, I’ll be putting my £5 to pick up the free bet on Sky on ‘Under 2.5 goals’ – could be cagey.
If it doesn’t come in it’ll be a feast of goals I guess 😉
I do have a boosted £20 on us to win just as I did against City, we’ll get a few unexpected scalps this season for sure.
I think we’ve got to a place I’m happy rolling the dice and risking a loss for a chance to win – I wouldn’t take a point now, I think we have the potential win in us.
But equally, this is one of our toughest fixtures – historically and based on where Chelsea are right now.
It will be a tough game because Chavs have a lot of attacking options and goal threats from different areas. If we sit deep as we did against Citeh we will need to be extremely resilient to repel this.
If teams begin to work us out snd start to isolate Son and Kane, the dynamics could alter with our counter attack nullified.
Having said that, an away game and the expectation of the home side to attack (even without fans) could be in out favor and suit Jose’s approach.
Tough one to call this, if Chavs are on fire and with Toby missing we might struggle. If they buckle under a bit of the pressure to perform as the home side it could play into our hands. 1-1 possible. Having said that I had the City game down as a 2-2.
Naturally I would be delighted with a win but I’d take a point now!!
The goals have dried up for us in relative terms in recent league matches…they’ve started flying in for Chelsea
We need to keep them to 2 goals or less, hopefully 1 goal or less! Then we have a real shot – but that won’t be easy.
We need to accept they might score first and then not crumble, keep to the plan.
One of our top three toughest league fixtures of the season – any sort of great performance or even better, any sort of positive result (I class a draw in that) bodes really well for this season. A heavy win and we will be talked up as in the running for the title, maybe even favourites.