Thursday’s Premier League London derby sees a Chelsea side who completed a tremendous turnaround at the weekend host a Tottenham Hotspor team who fell just short of pulling off a similar achievement.

While Mauricio Pochettino witnessed his side fight back brilliantly against Aston Villa, Spurs were made to pay for a shoddy first half in an excruciating 3-2 North London derby defeat to Arsenal.

The writing appeared to be on the wall for Chelsea when the halftime whistle blew at Villa Park, as Marc Cucurella’s unfortunate own goal and Morgan Rogers’ exquisite strike propelled the Lions into a two-goal advantage, thanks in no small part to familiar Blues wastefulness in the final third.

However, for just the fourth time in their Premier League history, Chelsea remarkably avoided defeat after entering the break two goals down through Noni Madueke’s curler and a sublime attempt from Conor Gallagher from a similar distance, and pandemonium briefly erupted in the away end when Robin Olsen and Axel Disasi inadvertently combined for an appatent winner.

Despite Craig Pawson having the best viwe of a perceived shove from Benoit Badiashile on Diego Carlos, the VAR interviewed and convinced the on-field official to chalk the goal off, leading to Pawson receiving an earful from several enraged Chelsea stars as they were cruely denied a courageous comeback victory.

Gallagher admitted to feeling “gutted” at full time as Chelsea’s winless run across all competitions extended to three matches, but they remain safely in the top half of the standings in ninth place and very much in the European mix heading into the final few matches – seventh-placed Newcastle United have played a game more and are just five points better off.

While profligacy has reared its ugly head more often than not for Chelsea recently, prolific performances have been easy to come by at Stamford Bridge, where they have won five and drawn one of their last six matches and have scored multiple goals in all of them, although while also conceding more than twice in all but one of them.

Chelsea’s penchant for goal-laden matches at home and Tottenham’s engrossing loss against Arsenal certainly gives rise to an all-action affair on Thursday, where the Lilywhites have some derby day wrongs to right after failing in their bid to quell the title-chasing Gunners juggernaut.

Curiously, Anger Postecoglu’s side performed better in the half that they conceded three goals than the 45 minutes where they scored twice, but even though calamities from David Raya and Declan Rice gifted Spurs a late route back into the game, goal number three eluded them as they fell to successive defeats.

While Postecoglu also had a few choice words about the officiating, the Australian could not argue that set-pieces were his side’s undoing once again, and no sooner was their top-four fate back in their own hands to being out of their control, they sit seven points below Aston Villa with two games to make up.

Also lacking the wounds from their humbling 4-0 beating at Newcastle United,  Spurs can only boast just two wins from their last 10 Premier League away matches and have only one goal to show from their last three on the road, while letting eight in at the other end of the field.

Chelsea vs. Tottenham Hotspur Head to head

In the previous 159 meetings between these two teams, Chelsea have claimed 71 victories while Spurs have won 50, and they have drawn in 38. Spurs have scored 216 goals and conceded 246 in the process.

• 12/01/2022
  Tottenham Hotspur

  0

  Chelsea

  1
  League Cup
• 23/01/2022
  Chelsea

  2

  Tottenham Hotspur

  0
  Premier League
• 14/08/2022
  Chelsea

  2

  Tottenham Hotspur

  2
  Premier League
• 25/02/2023
  Tottenham Hotspur

  2

  Chelsea

  0
  Premier League
• 06/11/2023
  Tottenham Hotspur

  1

  Chelsea

  4
  Premier League