Chelsea and its fierce London rival, Tottenham, come face-to-face once more on Sunday. Stamford Bridge is the venue for this highly anticipated occasion, and many people see this as the match that will decide who can challenge the top two, Liverpool and Manchester City, this season. The north London side has recruited extremely well this transfer window, adding the likes of Ives Bissouma and Richarlison to its squad. Spurs impressed on the opening weekend, as well, and they are currently sitting on top of the league after defeating Southampton 4-1.
New Chelsea owner Todd Boehly has also been busy and eager to strengthen the squad following the departure of Antonio Rudiger to Real Madrid and Andres Christensen to Barcelona. The Blues have secured the services of winger Raheem Sterling and defender Kalidou Koulibaly already, along with Brighton defender Marc Cucurella. Chelsea has also made a couple more signings in Gabriel Slonina and Carney Chukwuemeka, who are seen as ones for the future.
The Blues narrowly won on the opening weekend against Frank Lampard’s sticky Toffees, a 1-0 victory at Goodison Park. A calmly taken Jorginho penalty was all that separated the two teams on the day. Thomas Tuchel’s men looked to be merely testing their fitness, but they have to be on their best behavior if they want any chance of defeating Antonio Conte’s revamped squad.
Chelsea versus Tottenham matches have always delivered in recent seasons, the Battle of the Bridge in 2016 being the pinnacle of the rivalry. Spurs have only won once in west London during league play since 1990, a 3-1 win in 2018 during Mauricio Pochettino’s reign in north London.
The Blues and Tottenham are teams known for their wealth of world class options, experienced top internationals and promising youngsters. The world’s best are widely represented in both squads and narrowing it down to a combined XI proved a tough task. Nevertheless, we managed to string together a starting line-up with players from each team.
Here is the Chelsea and Spurs combined XI: