Tottenham vs Chelsea tips, Premier League predictions & odds
Tottenham vs Chelsea predictions:
Tottenham were league leaders when the Premier League campaign reached the quarter-pole marker and will be looking to go back to the top of the table when they host Chelsea on Monday (Sky Sports Main Event, 8pm).
Spurs are enjoying their best start to a season since they last won the top flight in the 1960/61 season, taking 26 points from their first 10 games.
Spurs are now fourth favourites in the Premier League odds to win the title and could re-establish a two-point lead with victory over Chelsea.
The closest Spurs ever came to winning the Premier League previously was in the 2016-17 season when they finished runners-up to Monday's opponents Chelsea.
Mauricio Pochettino was the man in charge of Tottenham back then and he’ll be at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Monday in his first competitive game against Spurs since leaving in 2019.
The Argentine returns to north London with his new charges, Chelsea, seemingly stuck in a rut.
The Blues are in the bottom half of the table following a home loss to Brentford last time out in the league and have won only three of their first ten games.
With a title challenge having failed to emerge, Chelsea are in danger of falling out of contention for the top four too with UK betting sites pushing their odds out to 8/1 to qualify for the Champions League.
Spurs fans will relish the chance to heap more misery on the suffering Chelsea supporters and may just get their wish with a home win part of our three selections for the clash.
No end in sight to Spurs’ title surge
Tottenham made it four wins on the bounce with a 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace last Friday with James Maddison and Son Heung-min doing the damage once more.
Maddison’s cross was deflected into his own net by Palace’s Joel Ward to break the deadlock before Son added the second not long after.
Son now has eight league goals to his name and is firmly in the Golden Boot conversation, while Maddison has registered eight goal involvements and is the heartbeat of a Tottenham team playing some exciting football.
The last time Spurs won five league games in a row was back in December 2018 when Pochettino was still in charge, but the man at the helm now, Ange Postecoglou, looks set to match that achievement.
Postecoglou’s transformation of Spurs in such a short space of time has been remarkable. The Aussie has improved all facets of their play and said after the Palace win that supporters are right to dream of a title win.
Victory over rivals Chelsea in a fixture Spurs have tended to struggle in will only strengthen Tottenham’s belief that this is their season.
The Blues will be desperate to end Spurs’ good start but recent performances haven’t suggested they are capable of such a feat and they are outsiders with football betting sites.
Since Graham Potter left, Chelsea have the joint-worst points tally (18) of ever-present Premier League teams and have won only four times.
It’s not like Pochettino has had a tough start either. Six of their first 10 games have been against teams currently sat in 10th or lower
They continue to struggle to open up opponents, drawing their fourth blank of the season in the 2-0 loss to Brentford. Only Everton (five) have failed to score in more top flight games this term.
A lengthy injury list isn’t helping matters, with up to eight first-team players missing on Monday.
The Blues did pick up a 2-0 EFL Cup win over Blackburn last Wednesday and can take heart from the fact they’ve lost only one of the last nine meetings with Tottenham.
But that’s about the extent of any optimism for Chelsea and a Spurs win over their old boss at 23/20 with BetMGM is our first selection.
Rivals to keep a lid on scoring
Postecoglou has done a good job of making Spurs more expansive at the same time as improving them defensively.
Only Manchester City (eight) have conceded fewer goals in the league than Tottenham’s total of nine.
Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario was unlucky not to keep his fifth clean sheet of the season at Palace and the shot-stopper with the highest save percentage in the Premier League will be tough for Chelsea to beat.
The Blues have conceded only two more goals than Tottenham with their issues at the other end.
Chelsea’s tally of 13 goals scored is their lowest at this stage of a season since the 2007/08 campaign and striker Nicolas Jackson is looking low on confidence after a tricky start to his time at Stamford Bridge.
Both sides will seek to dominate possession and limit the other’s chances, and this sets up as a low-scoring London derby.
Spicy Spurs can boost card count
Tottenham and Chelsea rank amongst the top five for cautions this season with both collecting 30 yellow cards and one red card through 10 games.
Spurs have shown they are happy to get stuck in, averaging more tackles per game than anyone else, and have a lengthy list of potential card candidates.
Yves Bissouma has had four yellows and a red this term, while Destiny Udogie, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Cristian Romero and James Maddison are no strangers to being spoken to by the referee.
With Rodrigo Bentancur now back in the reckoning too, Spurs' potential yellow card count has only increased.
It's a similar story when you look at Chelsea’s squad with Jackson having collected five yellow cards in seven games.
It’s no surprise then that the Premier League have sent their top referee, Michael Oliver, to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for this game.
Oliver is averaging just over four yellow cards per game but the potential is there for these two to push that average up and over 5.5 cards at 10/11 with BetUK.
Chris is an experienced sports betting writer who has worked with most major bookmakers and national media outlets, such as Racing Post and ITN. He covers a wide range of sports with his favourites being NFL, rugby, football and Formula 1.
