Tottenham Hotspur host Chelsea in a London derby on Saturday evening at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Dane has guided his side to third in the Premier League table off the back of their set-piece proficiency, though Spurs have flattered to deceive in Europe and were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Newcastle United on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca\u2019s Blues advanced into the quarterfinals after holding off a Wolverhampton Wanderers fightback at Molineux. Chelsea have been plagued by ill discipline at the start of 2025\u201326 and their home defeat to Sunderland last week, which could not be blamed on a red card, leaves them ninth in the table heading into Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
Team news favours Tottenham on personnel. Frank has confirmed a triple injury boost ahead of Chelsea\u2019s visit, with Cristian Romero, Destiny Udogie and Wilson Odobert all set to return to his matchday squad. Captain Romero has missed the previous four outings with a groin issue and is expected back in the Spurs defence. Given Chelsea\u2019s recent struggles, a switch to a back three is possible and Kevin Danso could retain his place despite Romero\u2019s return. Djed Spence may get the nod over Udogie down the left, with the Italian more likely to earn minutes off the bench. James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski, Kota Takai, Ben Davies, Radu Dr\u0103gu\u0219in, Archie Gray, Yves Bissouma and Dominic Solanke remain sidelined.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s injury list includes Cole Palmer, who will not be back until after the November international break. Levi Colwill is out for the long haul while D\u00e1rio Essugo and Beno\u00eet Badiashile are also sidelined. Liam Delap is suspended after his dismissal on Wednesday. Several first-choice players who were rested or used from the bench at Molineux are expected to return, and Wesley Fofana may come back into the defence.<\/p>\n
Tottenham predicted lineup vs. Chelsea (3-4-1-2): Vicario; Danso, Romero, Van de Van; Porro, Palhinha, Bentancur, Spence; Simons; Kolo Muani, Kudus.<\/p>\n
Chelsea predicted lineup vs. Tottenham (4-2-3-1): S\u00e1nchez; James, Fofana, Chalobah, Cucurella; Caicedo, Santos; Est\u00eav\u00e1o, Fern\u00e1ndez, Neto; Pedro.<\/p>\n
Spurs\u2019 returning players increase their chance of a rare victory over these rivals. Both teams are strong from set pieces, and the match has potential to swing either way as Tottenham seek to exploit glimpses of form from open play and Chelsea aim to impose their structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tottenham host Chelsea at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as key defenders return and questions remain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172,187],"tags":[1140,750,1050],"class_list":["post-4181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-caicedo","tag-cristian-romero","tag-derby-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4181","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=4181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}