Sure Prediction For Today, Saturday 22nd February 2020

While the fixture is of special significance for the Special One, Saturday’s tussle also looks set to be a crucial contest in the race of a top-four finish this term, and ahead of the Stamford Bridge action, just one-point separates Chelsea in 4^th from Spurs in 5^th.

Having held that final Champions League qualification place for most of the season, Chelsea’s grip on 4^th has been loosening by the week since the turn of the year.

Just one win from six Premier League assignments has seen Chelsea’s points buffer whittle right down, and now a clutch of chasing teams are within touching distance and one positive results of the Blues.

Chelsea’s 0-2 defeat at home to Manchester United on Monday felt particularly poignant, and Frank Lampard will fear that the lack of attacking thrust they showed in the game could also hamper their chances against Spurs this weekend.

Luckily for Lampard, Spurs are in the grip of a personnel crisis in the final third themselves. Already shorn of the services of Harry Kane, Tottenham lost their second-most potent attacker Son Heung-Min to injury this week.

Son had scored four of Spurs’s last seven Premier League goals, hitting the net at crucial times in their wins of Norwich, Man City, and Aston Villa, however, with the South Korean absent, Tottenham looked completely toothless in their mid-week 0-1 Champions League reverse at home to RB Leipzig.

Chelsea has plenty of injury worries of their own to contend with upfront with Tammy Abraham and Callum Hudson-Odoi struggling for fitness and Christian Pulisic on the sidelines, while N’Golo Kante’s absence from midfield this weekend will also be significant.

With both clubs carrying plenty of problems in forward areas in Saturday’s fixture, we expect their respective defences to take centre stage, and with Jose Mourinho’s penchant for setting his team up in a tactically reductive way for big matches, goals are expected to be thin on the ground at Stamford Bridge.

Games between Chelsea and Spurs have been tight in recent meetings, with under 2.5 goals scored in three of their last four encounters, and with the aforementioned attack blunting factors also considered, we think there is value in backing under 2.5 goals to be scored again this weekend.

Our correct score forecast tips Chelsea to eke out the narrowest of 1-0 wins, however. Lampard got the better of his former mentor, Mourinho when the teams met at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in late December and have masterminded a 2-0 triumph then, we’re backing the former England international to repeat the trick this weekend.

Even with Son in tow, Spurs failed to score in two of their last three away games at Southampton and Watford, and in a Mourinho setup that is likely to be very defensive at Stamford Bridge, we think Tottenham could fail to register again. Our prediction is a home win or a draw for Chelsea.