A chastening 3\u20131 home defeat to Crystal Palace in March convinced most of the Tottenham Hotspur support that relegation was no longer a laughing matter. West Ham United\u2019s emphatic victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers in early April then pushed Spurs into the bottom three for the first time in a decade, less than 48 hours before Roberto De Zerbi\u2019s managerial bow.<\/p>\n
There were few signs of progress on the Italian\u2019s debut at Sunderland, but the team has grown under his guidance since. Eight points from their four most recent outings have put Spurs on the brink of safety and altered the prospect of a trip to Stamford Bridge. The Lilywhites have won just one Premier League game at Stamford Bridge since the competition\u2019s inception, a 3\u20131 victory in April 2018, with Dele Alli scoring twice.<\/p>\n
A victory at Chelsea would be more than symbolic. It would all but confirm Tottenham as a Premier League side for 2026\u201327, because a win would leave them five points clear of West Ham with a single game remaining. Even a draw would be valuable. A point at Stamford Bridge would move Spurs three points clear of West Ham going into the final day and would require a 13-goal swing for the Hammers to overtake them. That is one reason Opta is convinced that Spurs are safe.<\/p>\n
Chelsea arrive as beaten FA Cup finalists and would see faint Champions League hopes fade completely should results elsewhere go against them. Bournemouth kick off against Manchester City 45 minutes earlier, meaning Chelsea\u2019s own fate could be decided before the full-time whistle at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
For Tottenham the objective is straightforward: control what they can. A measured, disciplined display that secures a point would be a major step toward survival. Back-to-back defeats for the Hammers have increased Spurs\u2019 chances, but scepticism among supporters remains. This isn\u2019t done just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eight points from four matches leaves Spurs on the brink; a result at Stamford Bridge matters still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13898,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969,1464],"tags":[1162],"class_list":["post-13899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","category-tottenham","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}