Second Servings at The Bridge: Previewing Chelsea vs. Tottenham

On the off-chance that you don't recall, the last meeting between Chelsea and Spurs was something of a humdinger. The two sides met at Stamford Bridge in early May, with Tottenham still nominally in the Premier League title race. Though Spurs trailed Leicester City by a considerable margin, there was still hope among the travelling fans that they could take three points from a downtrodden and beleaguered Chelsea side, and so keep their slim title hopes alive. Instead, the home team, in the midst of their worst season for decades, stepped up their game in quite miraculous fashion, and reduced hundreds of Spurs fans to tears by kicking off Leicester's title party with a late goal from Eden Hazard, which secured a season-defining 2-2 draw.

While the consequent explosion of joy from Leicester consumed much of the oxygen of publicity in the aftermath, the game was memorable in and of itself. That was mainly owing to the fact that Chelsea and Spurs kicked the absolute living shite out of each other, which the majority of neutrals thoroughly enjoyed. Accompanying the extensive footage of dejected Spurs fans with hands on heads come the final whistle, there was the sight of Eric 'Chainsaw Legs' Dier chopping down Eden Hazard, and by 'chopping down' we of course mean 'tackling him with all the elegance of an industrial cement truck'. There were shoving matches, verbal spats and 12 yellow cards in all, a whopping nine of which went to Tottenham players. In the aftermath, the two clubs were severely reprimanded by the FA, and fined a total of £600,000.

Without wanting to contradict the stern message the FA were trying to send with that punishment, let us be the first to say that – while we cannot condone violence, in our capacity as responsible journalists and, more broadly, emissaries of peace – we want to see the same competitive spirit on show come Saturday evening. Tottenham travel to the Bridge to face a rejuvenated Chelsea team who, having won their last six games in a row, are three points clear the top of the league. The opportunity for Spurs' revenge is obvious, while bitter memories of the last match will be fresh in the minds of the two squads. Indeed, rumour has it that Dier has spent the last week repeating a single tackling exercise on a polystyrene mannequin, which now has only a foamy mess for legs.

That rumour is completely unsubstantiated mind, but Eden Hazard would still do well to stay well away from his erstwhile assailant. In fact, anyone participating in the match should secure their shin pads just that little bit tighter, because it's almost certainly going to go from 'competitive and spirited' to 'really fucking nasty' at some point fairly early on in the game. There are going to be crunching reducers, cards galore and perhaps even some decent football on show. Nobody will be bothered about that, naturally. This is England and, if we're honest, when we boil down our high-minded pretensions, football fans just want to see lots of two-footed tackles and multi-millionaires elbowing each other in the throat.