Next Thursday, 1st of January 2015, a Chelsea hurting in their pride will measure forces with a moralized Tottenham at White Hart Lane for round 20 of the English Premier League, on a match of special importance for the Blues, who cannot allow any more slip ups if they don’t want to be overthrown by Manchester City at the top of the table.

Last Sunday’s match at St. Mary’s Stadium was definitely not an easy one for the current league leaders. Chelsea had to pull rank to secure a draw during their visit to Southampton and if it wasn’t for a spectacular moment of pure inspiration of the Belgian wonderboy Eden Hazard just before the break, the Blues would have left St. Mary’s Stadium with their second defeat of the season. Despite having enjoyed from 61% of ball possession, Chelsea’s game was not as effective as on previous occasions and the team’s attacking movements left something to be desired. At the end of the match, José Mourinho wasn’t happy with the referee’s performance once again but, at the same time, he acknowledges that his team wasn’t particularly inspired and could have done better.

Next Thursday’s clash against their neighbours and rivals of Tottenham at White Hart Lane will surely be a great test to Chelsea’s power and their capacity of quickly return to wins after a less impressive performance. For that match, José Mourinho will most certainly have all his players at disposal once again, since there aren’t currently any names on the team’s injury list.

As for the Spurs, it is fair to say that they are going through a very positive period with four wins in their last five official matches. Their new manager, Mauricio Pochettino, is doing a great job with the players he has at his disposal and he is beyond any doubt building a team for the future. Last weekend, Tottenham secured a valuable home draw against Manchester United and enjoyed from some excellent opportunities to win the match, especially during the second-half.

Chelsea are favourites to win the next Thursday’s clash and if they managed to replicate what they did against the Spurs at Stamford Bridge early this month, they will certainly not experience any major difficulties to claim the three points.

Tottenham

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

Recent Form - DWWWW

Chelsea

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

Recent Form - DWWWW

Possible Line-ups

Tottenham (4-4-1-1) - Lloris - Vertonghen - Fazio - Chiriches - Rose - Bentaleb - Mason - Townsend - Eriksen - Lamella - Kane

Chelsea (4-3-3) – Courtois - Ivanovic - Terry - Cahill - Filipe Luis - Matic - Fàbregas - Óscar - Hazard - Willian - Diego Costa

Prediction

Tottenham 0 Chelsea 1