Chelsea vs Tottenham Picks, Predictions and Odds Jan 23
Chelsea vs Tottenham Betting Preview
WagerTalk soccer handicapper Nick Borrman offers his thoughts on Sunday’s Chelsea vs Tottenham showdown in the Premier League. This will be the third meeting between these two teams in less than three weeks, with Chelsea winning both legs of their EFL Cup matchup by scores of 1-0 and 2-0 earlier this month.
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| Sunday, Jan 23 | Premier League Betting Notes |
|---|---|
| Chelsea: | -150 |
| Tottenham: | +450 |
| Draw: | +295 |
| Total: | 2.5 Goals (Odds Above Courtesy of DraftKings) |
| Game Time: | 11:30pm ET / 8:30am PT at Stamford Bridge |
Chelsea’s Blues
A proper play on words as the Blues are dealing with the blues right now. They settled for yet another draw on Tuesday, 1-1 at Brighton, their 2nd 1-1 draw with Brighton over the last three weeks. That is now four games without a win for Chelsea and going back a little further, they have just one win in their last seven games as they have settled for a whopping five draws.
Defensively, there have been no glaring regressions for Chelsea when looking at their numbers, but it’s been the tale of two seasons so far for them in results. In their first 12 games of the season, Chelsea managed eight clean sheets, conceding a total of just four goals. During those 12 games, they allowed an average of 0.95 xGA. However, now in their 11 games since, they have kept just one single clean sheet conceding 14 goals along the way, but oddly, on an almost identical xGA of 1.00.
Chelsea was clearly overperforming defensively in those first 12 games while the over-correction has reared its head more recently. Still, this is a very good defensive side, allowing the third fewest xGA at 0.98 per game, along with the third fewest shots, 9.6, and shots on goal, 3.6, trailing only Manchester City and Liverpool in all three stat lines.
What is different for Chelsea is offensively, they are just not creating chances like they were earlier this season. While dealing with several players in COVID protocol certainly hurt them, now as they have gotten healthy, they are still struggling to get anything going as evidenced by Tuesday’s draw with Brighton in which they generated just 0.57 xG. In their last six games, Chelsea have averaged just 1.16 xG compared to averaging 2.05 in their first 17.
Conte’s Spurs
Since the sacking of Nuno as Tottenham’s manager after their 0-3 loss to Manchester United at the end of October, the Spurs haven’t lost a single EPL game since Antonio Conte took over on the sidelines. They have played eight matches during his tenure with five wins and three draws and have kept five clean sheets allowing a total of just four goals. Granted, the level of competition was downright dreadful as Liverpool was the only team in the top-half of the table they have faced.
Tottenham was hit with their own COVID crisis and unlike Chelsea, they have had several games postponed over the last several weeks, with this being their first league match since New Year’s Day. However, they have played three Cup matches since they, beating up on low-level Morecambe, but losing twice to this very Chelsea team in the Carabao Cup semifinals, 0-2 and 0-1.
Tottenham is without one of their attacking 1-2 punch for this match as Heung-Min Son is out with injury. Son picked up a muscle injury in Leg 1 against Chelsea and is expected out until February. Replacing his 0.61 xG + xA per game average is not going to be easy to do and a big reason why they failed to threaten any chance of a comeback in Leg 2.
Chelsea vs Tottenham Prediction
This is now the 3rd meeting between these teams in the last two and a half weeks including the Carabao Cup semifinal. With both of those matches finishing under the total, these teams have now had seven of their last nine matches finish under 2.5 goals.
Chelsea’s defense remains solid, even though they have been conceding more than the beginning of the season while Tottenham’s defense has improved quite a bit under the direction of Antonio Conte. Add in the fact that the Spurs are without their leading goal scorer and it’s hard to imagine this game having a ton of chances either way. TAKE UNDER 2.5 GOALS.
*Note, this article was written before Tottenham’s midweek match vs Leicester on Wed 1/19.
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