An old and enduring rivalry is rekindled in this Sunday’s prime-time slot as Chelsea travel to Tottenham Hotspur for a showdown between the Premier League’s most prolific away team and its third most-potent hosts. Club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton look ahead to derby day...
This is London’s third-oldest top-flight derby, first played this month in 1909 at Stamford Bridge, two weeks after Spurs first met Arsenal. Four of the Blues’ next six league games are derbies.
Both these teams visited the South Coast in midweek. Thursday saw Bournemouth pip Spurs, while the Blues conjured five different scorers and providers, despite seven changes, at Southampton the night before.
Before the Cherries’ success, most of Spurs’ league defeats had arrived, like this 153rd north versus west capital derby, on the Sunday after a Thursday fixture.
Chelsea, meanwhile, have claimed more league wins, goals, points and home and away doubles against the Lilywhites than from any of our opponents.
Team news
Most of Chelsea’s midweek line-ups look quite different to that at the weekend, but even before the win at Southampton Enzo Maresca mixed up the two player pools.
Wednesday’s third successive league victory was the most emphatic, the Blues’ xG of 5.29 the highest ever recorded by Opta for an away team in the top flight.
Teams with attacking pace tend to do well against Tottenham's high defensive line and Wednesday’s spread of goal credits across the team augurs well. At the other end of the field, Filip Jorgensen stated his case well, but our head coach confirmed Robert Sanchez remains our No1 keeper and will start in north London.
The Italian also made clear his displeasure at the loose opening, when players did not press man-to-man as instructed. Any repeat could be a bigger problem against the more dynamic Spurs.
Players uninvolved on Wednesday such as Levi Colwill, Benoit Badiashile, Romeo Lavia, Pedro Neto and Nicolas Jackson could return this weekend, though Reece James and Wesley Fofana are out until 2025, and Mykhailo Mudryk will miss this match with illness. Jackson will hope to add to his four goals in two league meetings with Tottenham, including a hat-trick in our 4-1 success last season.
An emphatic first strike for the Blues off the bench pressed the claim for winger Jadon Sancho to start on Sunday, with full-backs Malo Gusto and Marc Cucurella may retain their places to counter Spurs’ dangerous widemen. While Gusto delivered his first Chelsea assist midweek, Christopher Nkunku raised his strike tally for the season to 12 and Enzo Fernandez has now registered a goal or an assist in five straight games.
The history
On 18 December it will be 115 years since this derby match-up was played for the first time at Stamford Bridge. Back in 1909, Jimmy Windridge headed the opener and Joe Bradshaw the winner in a 2-1 Chelsea victory enjoyed by 50,000 spectators.
More than a century later, the Blues won our maiden league bow at Tottenham’s temporary Wembley home in 2017 by the same scoreline, thanks to a fine Marcos Alonso brace.
And two goals from Willian (who else?), one a penalty, sufficed to deliver three points when the west Londoners debuted at Spurs’ current stadium, five years ago this month. We have won four of the five league trips there since.
The Blues’ most recent visit last season ended 4-1 – our biggest win at Spurs since this month in 1997, when Tore Andre Flo scored a hat-trick in the legendary ‘6-1 at the Lane’.
November 2023’s game was a classic example of the Premier League’s crash-bang-wallop qualities, topped by a movie’s worth of VAR decisions, as five goals were ruled out.
When Dejan Kulusevski confirmed the hosts’ early dominance with the opening goal it looked ominous, before Ange Postecoglou’s side suddenly imploded. Cristian Romero’s reviewed straight-red challenge on Fernandez led to Cole Palmer’s penalty equaliser 10 minutes from the break, and 10 minutes into the second half Destiny Udogie was off too, following a second yellow offence.
Ill-judged all-out attacking from Spurs saw the nine men gradually picked off, Jackson putting the Blues ahead and hitting two more in stoppage time to cap a memorable night.
Know this...
Tottenham are currently the sixth-best-performing home side in the top flight, but Chelsea have the second-best record on the road.
The Southampton win is only the second time the Blues have recorded five different goal scorers and providers in a Premier League game, and the first on the road. The feat was previously achieved in the 5-0 home victory over Manchester City, with goals by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, John Terry, Mario Stanic, Frank Lampard and William Gallas, plus assists from Gianfranco Zola, Graeme Le Saux, Terry, Carlton Cole and Stanic.
It was also the sixth time in the Premier League eight or more of our players contributed towards goals – the previous five were Southampton (4-1, 2019), Aston Villa (8-0, 2012), Wigan Athletic (8-0, 2010), Sunderland (7-2, 2010) and Man City (5-0, 2003).
With his first goal for the club he supported as a boy on Wednesday, Sancho became the 500th goalscorer in our 119-year history.
Chelsea’s current scoring rate of 57 goals from 22 matches across all competitions (2.6 goals per game) is the best for any single season in our history.
Premier League London derbies top three
Played Won Drawn Lost Goal difference Points Points per match
Arsenal 303 159 81 63 +222 558 1.84
Chelsea 303 157 77 69 +192 548 1.81
Tottenham 304 111 86 107 +6 419 1.38