How should Chelsea line up against Spurs in first home game of new season?

Our first home game of the 2022-23 Premier League season see us take on Tottenham Hotspur, whom we played four times last season, beat four times, and beat four times without conceding a single goal.

But these Spurs aren’t last season’s Spurs, and they appear to operating at full Antonio Conte-capacity already. Talk of a third-place finish, if not even better, has been rife in predictive pre-season punditry, and they certainly looked good against Southampton, who do have a habit of making teams look good.

That said, Spurs have still won just once at Stamford Bridge since 1990 — ironically that one loss came with Antonio Conte at the Chelsea helm — so we have the full weight of history behind us to propel us forward.

We however will not have frequent Spurs-killer Marcos Alonso or the injured Mateo Kovačić to participate in said propelling. Billy Gilmour has been called back into first-team training for the latter, while Ethan Ampadu has recently resurfaced as well following the departure of Malang Sarr on loan to Monaco. No one has replaced Timo Werner just yet, but Callum Hudson-Odoi has also returned to training in the last couple days.

Choose wisely!

(Live results)