So we enter the premier league danger zone. Any point lost henceforth is going to be costly. Spurs have just been beaten by Man City but we are just fresh from back to back victories although against Derby and Sunderland. The fact that we are playing at White Hart Lane should not change our status of being favourites for picking up three points.

What worries me is that Chelsea would be playing their 4th match in 12 days. In the last three matches, against Barnsley, Derby and Sunderland, we played with fairly full strength first choice players. Tottenham are quick and can be devastating in counterattacks. I just hope our players are up to the task on Wednesday night. Spurs did not rest anyone against Man City. That’s because from their point of view, Man City is more ‘winnable’ than Chelsea. With this same logic, Chelsea could have also rested players and allowed youth or reserve players to take on Barnsley or Sunderland. Even against Derby when we were 4-0 up, we saw Drogba and Shevchenko coming in as subs. Millions of pounds on the youth facility but a full strength team taking on Barnsley! It is against teams like Barnsley, the young players would be hungry and enthusiastic to play because they know that they can make a difference. The Chelsea reserves should be able to beat Barnsley. Whereas the top Chelsea professionals may not quite have the same kind of hunger that they may have, to play against say Man Utd. Finally, I only hope that players are not faigued or something, for this crucial match.

I would choose the best eleven for this match. I realise Petr Cech has recovered and can feature in the bench. The big selection dilemma is in attack. May be it’s a shocker for you that I’ll drop both Drogba and Anelka. I’ll play 4-3-3 with Shevchenko as the striker with Joe Cole and Kalou on either sides. The midfielders would be Lampard, Ballack and Mikel. In defence we should have Terry, Carvalho, Ferreira and Ashley Cole. Whatever happened to Ivanovic! Compared to the agony of last season where we could not buy the all-important central defender in January, this time we have got one and we are in a position that he has not even made his debut by mid-March!

Lampard, Mikel, Alex, Obi – they are all on four yellow cards and the next match is against Arsenal. Either we need to be conservative about their participation in this match or make these players understand the importance and impact of a yellow card in this match against Spurs. For once I thought the card that Lampard got for alleged diving in the penalty box recently could be a bad, costly mistake by the referee but then Lampard dived to get a penalty against Derby and scored from it.

Spurs are a team who play very open football. They’ll get their opportunities and in the process we will also get some, that is if we are unable to engineer any attacks ourselves. I’m saying this because of what I saw in the Carling Cup final. Until we realised that we might actually lose the final, we did not do much in the match. At many occasions I could see Chelsea players with the ball stuck to their feet not knowing what exactly was to be done. There was a scarcity of ideas. If we play with conviction and confidence and this Spurs team is beatable, just like Man City showed, coming from behind.

I’m sure the players would be waiting for a chance to play Spurs to avenge the League Cup final defeat. It’s not just the sentiment of revenge, most importantly it’s Chelsea charge towards the league title that would be biggest motivation for the players. In contrast, Spurs have to play only for pride. They can’t make it to Europe and they are not in danger of relegation either. If I were Juande Ramos, I would not put too much stress on myself to beat Chelsea. I would rather concentrate on the matches that have greater chance to win. In the League Cup finals, it was Spurs players who showed more desire and hunger to win the cup. In this premier league match, Chelsea players would have more desire and hunger to win, which should make our job easier.

Take a look at our remaining premier league fixtures. 9 matches left, 5 of them at home. The four away matches happen to be at Tottenham, Man City, Everton and Newcastle. There are four matches in the remaining fixtures where we can have absolutely no excuse not to get three points – Middlesbrough, Wigan, Newcastle & Bolton. There are three matches where we are the favourites but we can’t relax – Everton, Man City & Spurs. The remaining two matches are anyone’s game – Arsenal and Man Utd.

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Let the winning streak start at White Hart Lane. 2-1 for Chelsea, a reverse of the League Cup final! Don’t forget to be there at BC Shout for the live match chat!