By dixon9
April 8 2007

Difficult to feel sympathy for one of our old rivals but you’d have to be pretty hard hearted too not feel even a twinge of pity for a side that walked off a pitch on foreign soil only a day and a half ago (38 hours to be exact) before kick-off.

We will have had a days extra rest than the north London side whose application to postpone this match until a day later was refused as we have to play a CL away match on the Tuesday.

 

Of course, Spurs will be up for this and would enjoy being the ones to damage our title hopes but will it soon end up as being a case of looking after themselves with Sevilla in mind rather than a cutting your nose to spite your face approach?

 

There’s a part of me that can’t shake off the old Chelsea syndrome and feels that this is exactly the type of fixture we’d make a pig ears of in the past but the head tells me we should be too much for the White Hart Lane team when considering the circumstances.

 

The 3 points are imperative as usual and for a nice change, we get the opportunity to put the pressure on Manchester United as they, for once, play after ourselves who are away to UEFA place aspirants, Portsmouth who are capable of squeezing some points off of the best of sides. 

 

We still have two of our best players injured in Robben and Essien although I’m hoping that Essien is almost there but being saved for Tuesday.  Joe Cole may well get an initial 65 mins or so or at least come on early during the 2^nd half so as to get some more match sharpness under his belt bearing in mind the intense campaign on three fronts – continued success in these competitions would mean nearly a game every 3 days until the end of the season.

 

Spurs for their part have defender Ricardo Rocha is set to return but although Ledley King is close to fitness, he is likely to be kept in cotton wool for a bit longer.

 

Jol isn’t the type to throw in the towel due to fixture congestion by sacrificing players and resting them until their UEFA Cup game midweek, however, he’ll probably be forced to rotate a good deal.

 

Mourinho has as good as said that he will play his best team available due to our pursuit of Manchester United but although we may start with a similar side to Wednesday’s team, I’m expecting at least 2 differences in the starting line-up followed by all subs being used in the second half if it looks as if the game is safe.

 

John Terry and Paul Robinson both have given their views on this London derby;

 

Terry:  "All we can do at this stage of the season is keep winning, winning, winning. It's such a busy period but if we do keep winning, we're going to be successful.

"Manchester United are doing well there's no denying that, but anything can happen and they've still got to come to our place.

"We beat Watford last Saturday in the end and we've now won 13 and drawn two of our last 15 games."

Robinson:  "We can't just sit there and moan about the penalty decision that went against us on Thursday; we've got a big game against Chelsea on Saturday and then Sevilla at the Lane next week.

"Chelsea have a strong squad whoever plays - whether it's Shevchenko, Drogba or Kalou up front - and we are preparing for another tough game.

"We've a good chance of getting back into the Uefa Cup through the league and that's what we're concentrating on."

A win today tomorrow would make it 60 successive games undefeated at home – just 3 short of the all time record whilst Spurs could strive to a personal best of 6 straight wins on the bounce in the PL.

Chelsea (from): Cech, Cudicini, Hilario, Ferreira, Geremi, Carvalho, Terry, Bridge, A Cole, J Cole, Lampard, Ballack, Makelele, Obi, Diarra, Drogba, Wright-Phillips, Boulahrouz, Shevchenko, Kalou.

Tottenham (from): Robinson, Stalteri, Chimbonda, Dawson, Young-Pyo Lee, Rocha, Lennon, Malbranque, Zokora, Jenas, Tainio, Ghaly, Keane, Berbatov, Cerny, Mido, Defoe, Taarabt, Ifil, C Lee.

Referee:  Rob Styles

 

 

I’m expecting an initial 4-4-2:  Cech, Diarra, Carvalho, Terry, Bridge, Obi Mikel, Lampard, Ballack, Kalou, Drogba and Sheva then changing to 4-3-3 exchanging Shevchenko, Drogba and Ballack for SWP, J Cole and Makelele.

 

Prediction: 3-0.  Scorers: Shevchenko, SWP and Joe Cole.