Tottenham head to Chelsea on Tuesday night knowing a win or a draw will secure their Premier League survival. The record at Stamford Bridge is grim. The players on this list haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory this season either, but they could still make the difference when it matters most for Spurs.
One win in 33 Premier League meetings at Stamford Bridge. That stat follows Tottenham around like a bad smell, hauled out every time this fixture comes around, and with good reason. The last time Spurs won there in the league, Mauricio Pochettino was in the dugout, and Harry Kane was 24. April 2018, a 3-1 win. It feels like a different club entirely.
There is a reason this side is where they are. It is not bad luck, not a conspiracy, not a run of fixtures. It is a squad that has spent most of this season looking like it has no idea what it is doing.
Eight points from the last four matches under De Zerbi represent genuine progress, but six from the 17 before that tells you what the baseline actually looks like. Chelsea are winless in seven, which is the main reason there is any hope at all.
So let’s be honest about who Tottenham are relying on. These four need to have good nights. They haven’t always managed that this season. But here’s why Tuesday night at Stamford Bridge might be different.
1. Conor Gallagher: Tottenham midfielder could haunt his former club
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: Conor Gallagher was signed for £35 million in January and spent the first two months at Spurs looking like a player who’d lost his way entirely.
Some of the performances were hard to watch. His passing accuracy dropped to 74 per cent in one home defeat to Fulham; he lost the ball 12 times and won one ground duel. Fans were calling him the worst signing in the club’s history before he’d been there four months.
He joined from Atletico Madrid, looking to reignite a career that had stalled under Diego Simeone, and for a long stretch, it looked like the move had made things worse. A midfielder who can’t find his feet in a struggling side is not a reassuring thing to go to Stamford Bridge with.
But then De Zerbi arrived, and Gallagher finally looked like himself again. His performance in the 2-1 win at Aston Villa was something different altogether: press triggers, recovery runs, a goal scored and a midfield bossed. De Zerbi said afterwards: “When Gallagher plays like this we play with 12 players,” “because you can find him as a striker, as a midfielder, as a full-back, everywhere on the pitch.”
The worry is that Villa were rotating heavily and had nothing to play for. Chelsea, even in freefall, are a different test. Caicedo and Fernandez will not give him the space he had at Villa Park. But Gallagher knows that midfield. He knows where the gaps open up and when to press.
Going back to Stamford Bridge with something to prove is either the worst possible scenario for him, or exactly the kind of moment that drags a performance out of a player who has been searching for one all season.
2. Mathys Tel: Tottenham attacker has a point to prove at Stamford Bridge
Mathys Tel went 18 league games without a goal before his curler against Leeds. Then, 24 minutes after scoring it, he attempted an overhead kick inside his own box, caught Ethan Ampadu in the face, and gave away the penalty that cost Spurs two points they absolutely could not afford to drop. Jamie Carragher called it two ridiculous decisions. It is hard to argue.
That is the Tel problem in miniature. The talent is obvious, and it has been from the start. The judgement is not there yet, and at 21 in a relegation fight, that gap between potential and reliability is a real source of anxiety.
He has four league goals this season. Four. In and out of the side, never quite nailing down a consistent role, drifting in and out of games. In a side this desperate for goals, that return has not been enough.
Here is the case for him anyway: Chelsea have not kept a clean sheet since October, and their backline has been leaking goals in every Premier League game since. Tel’s pace in behind is the kind of thing that rattles a defence that is already low on confidence. He doesn’t need to be smart. He needs to run and shoot and trust his instincts.
The question is whether those instincts take him towards goal or towards his own penalty area.
3. Richarlison: Tottenham’s top scorer ready to punish a leaky Chelsea defence
Richarlison is Tottenham’s top scorer this season. Ten Premier League goals. That is a decent return in the abstract. In the context of a side that has spent most of the campaign looking utterly toothless in attack, it is the main reason Richarlison is not getting more credit. He has been carrying the goal threat almost entirely on his own, and nobody seems especially grateful.
The honest version of his season: inconsistent, in and out of form, part of a collective attack that has been poor. The goals are real, but the performances around them have been patchy. His link-up play goes missing, he can vanish from games, and there have been stretches where even he looked like a player unsure what system he was supposed to be playing in.
He scored in the Villa win. He grabbed the assist at Wolves that led directly to Palhinha’s winner. Two consecutive goal contributions in the biggest games of the season. And the thing about Richarlison is that he has done this before: he kept Everton up in 2022 with goals when it mattered and when nobody expected him to deliver. He is not a pretty player to watch, but ugly goals at Stamford Bridge count the same as beautiful ones.
Solanke’s hamstring injury almost certainly rules him out, which means Richarlison leads the line, whether you’re confident in him or not. Chelsea’s defence has been a mess for months. This is the kind of game he either disappears in completely or pops up with the goal that nobody saw coming.
4. Micky van de Ven: Tottenham defender can shut Chelsea out
The case for Micky van de Ven starts with the brutal reality of what sits alongside him. Cristian Romero is out for the season. Kevin Danso has been decent but hardly imposing. The rest of the defensive unit has spent most of the campaign looking shaky at best and catastrophic at worst. Van de Ven has been the one constant: fit all season, playing nearly every minute, and carrying a back four that has given him very little help.
That is also the tension. Because the defensive record is what it is, regardless. Tottenham have been leaking goals all season, and a Chelsea attack built around players who rotate and probe and exploit gaps in behind is exactly the kind of thing that has caused problems all year. Cole Palmer drops into pockets. Joao Pedro spins in behind. Cucurella overlaps on the left. Van de Ven cannot do all of it on his own.
What he can do is make Chelsea work for everything. His pace is genuinely exceptional for a centre-back, and he carries the ball out calmly from the back, which De Zerbi needs in his system. He has been one of the few Spurs players this season who looks like he actually belongs at this level. That matters, at Stamford Bridge, on a night like this.
Chelsea might have the statistical edge. The record says they probably should win. But this Spurs side has ground out results at Wolves and Villa when the pressure was at its highest.
If Van de Ven holds the line, Gallagher finds the version of himself that De Zerbi keeps insisting is in there, Tel stays on the right side of reckless, and Richarlison does what he did at Villa: Tuesday night at Stamford Bridge could be something worth remembering. It just won’t be comfortable getting there.
- READ MORE: Chelsea manager issues Tottenham ‘massive’ warning ahead of biggest London derby in years