We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with our Tottenham vs Chelsea prediction and preview. Can Ange Postecoglou’s side get back on track?
Tottenham vs Chelsea: The Key Insights
The Opta supercomputer makes Chelsea favourites to win, with the Blues taking all three points in 43.2% of simulations.
Chelsea have won four of their last five visits to Spurs in the top flight, though.
Chelsea have won 35 Premier League games and scored 116 goals against Tottenham in the competition, more than they have vs any other opponent.
A midweek round of Premier League fixtures kicked off the rush of football as we surge towards the hectic festive period. And Sunday’s clash between Tottenham and Chelsea could be an early Christmas cracker.
Chelsea are the league’s leading scorers this season (31 goals), with their 5-1 hammering of Southampton on Wednesday seeing Enzo Maresca’s side move into second place, above Arsenal on goal difference and within seven points of leaders Liverpool, who dropped points at Newcastle United. Spurs, meanwhile, have scored 28 goals, with only the Blues and Liverpool (29) managing more.
Yet for all their attacking quality, Spurs have been undone by inconsistent displays this season, and they sit in 10th heading into the weekend after Thursday’s 1-0 loss at Bournemouth.
You really don’t know what you’re going to get from Ange Postecoglou’s side at the minute. Will it be the team that rocked up and thrashed Manchester City 4-0, or the one that went down with something of a whimper at the Vitality Stadium, where the away fans made their feelings known at full-time.
The issues are, in the main, in defence. Tottenham have kept just one clean sheet in their last 22 Premier League home games (4-0 vs Everton this season), a run which started with a 4-1 loss against Chelsea last November. Indeed, since the start of November 2023, no side currently in England’s top four tiers have recorded fewer home league shutouts than Spurs.
Spurs have lost seven of their last 11 Premier League away games (W3 D1), while they haven’t won on the road when conceding first in the competition since a 5-2 win at Burnley in September 2023 (D2 L8 since), so Postecoglou will be glad to be back on home turf this time out.
That being said, they have taken just one point from their last two top-flight matches at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, losing to Ipswich Town and drawing 1-1 with Fulham. They were also pegged back to a 2-2 draw by Roma in the Europa League.
So, Chelsea should be full of confidence heading into this one. Enzo Maresca’s team have reeled off three straight victories in the league, and have been dominant in each of those fixtures – against Leicester City, Aston Villa and Southampton.
In all competitions, Chelsea have scored 57 goals in 22 games this season, which is already seven more than they scored in 2022-23 (50 in 50 games). Their current goals-per-game ratio of 2.6 is their best in a single season in their entire history.
Nicolas Jackson is in brilliant form. He is already on eight league goals for the season, and he has a fine record against Tottenham, too. He has scored four goals in his two Premier League games against Spurs, netting a hat-trick in the corresponding fixture last season.
Yet Jackson is not their only threat. There is of course the wonderful Cole Palmer, while Enzo Fernández has seven assists in all competitions for Chelsea this season, the most of any Blues player. In fact, the Argentine has provided six assists in his last five games.
Meanwhile, only Erling Haaland (17) and Mohamed Salah (15) have scored more goals in all competitions among Premier League players this season than Chelsea’s Christopher Nkunku (12) – the Frenchman has now found the net in eight of his last nine starts, scoring 11 times.
Spurs, of course, have plenty of attacking quality of their own.
Brennan Johnson has scored three goals across his last five home appearances in the Premier League, more than across his previous 24 outings at home in the competition for Spurs and Nottingham Forest (two goals).
Dominic Solanke has not been able to get as many goals as he would have liked so far, but does lead the Premier League for pressures in the final third leading to a turnover (49). Meanwhile, Dejan Kulusevski has created 34 chances, a tally bettered by only Youri Tielemans (35), Palmer (36) and Bukayo Saka (38).
Son Heung-min is, of course, always a threat. That being said, among teams he has played 1,000+ minutes against, Son’s worst minutes-per-goal rate in the Premier League is against Chelsea, with the South Korean star netting just twice in 16 appearances (1,061 minutes) versus the Blues (531 mins per goal).
Tottenham vs Chelsea Head-to-Head
Tottenham have won just one of their last 11 Premier League games against Chelsea (D2 L8), picking up a 2-0 home win in February 2023.
After a run of just two wins in 13 Premier League away games against Tottenham between 2006 and 2018 (D5 L6), Chelsea have now won four of their last five visits to Spurs (L1).
Chelsea have won 35 Premier League games and scored 116 Premier League goals against Tottenham, more than they have vs any other opponent. It’s also the most goals Spurs have conceded against a side, while they have only lost more times to Manchester United (39).
Spurs were unbeaten in their first four Premier League London derbies under Postecoglou (W2 D2) but have lost seven of their last 13 (W4 D2). Five of their six London derby wins under the Australian have been at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, however.
Chelsea have won five of their seven games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in all competitions (D1 L1), the most wins any visiting side has picked up at the ground since Spurs moved there in 2019.
Tottenham vs Chelsea Prediction
Across 10,000 pre-match simulations, Chelsea triumphed in 43.2%. Spurs, meanwhile, came out on top in 32.7% of the data-led sims, so the supercomputer is forecasting a close encounter. The probability of a draw is 24.1%.
Tottenham vs Chelsea Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Sunday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.