Derby clash could be murder by numbers

Matthew Norman
20 Mar 2009

No Premier League fixture excites the statisticians like the one to be played tomorrow at White Hart Lane - a game with such a scintillatingly one-sided modern record that at times one has marvelled at the triumph of hope over experience represented by Spurs bothering to turn up for it at all.

The stats speak eloquently for themselves, and for those of us emotionally welded to the Lilywhites what they have to say is horrendous. Since the word "Premier" elbowed out its feebler etymological cousin "First", Chelsea have scored more goals, accrued more points and won more times against Tottenham than any other club.

Of the 33 meetings, Chelsea have won 20, while 12 (including the last two) have been drawn. For those of you who didn't apply for Carol Vorderman's Countdown berth, this means that Tottenham have won once - a startling success rate of 3.03 per cent.

This is not a figure, we suspect, that will concern the club's chairman Daniel Levy. The form book suggests that the only figures that deeply interest him, as he continues the forlorn search for a buyer, are the ones on the balance sheet.

So a rousing hats off to him for the £39.8million profit recorded in the second half of last year. During most of the relevant months the results were atrocious even by modern Tottenham standards, it's perfectly true, but why worry about that when the atrocity stemmed directly from the very sales of star strikers that produced the profit? You can't have everything in this life. Choices must be made.

The choice on Roman Abramovich's horizon promises to be a little harder. Assuming Guus Hiddink sustains his remarkable rejuvenation of the bemused and shapeless team he inherited from Phil Scolari, what Mr A will face is in fact a bit of a Sophie's Choice. If at the end of the season he permanently nicks Hiddink from the Russian national side he bankrolls, he will infuriate the Russians. If he fails to do so, he will distress his fans and players, who with good reason are desperate for Hiddink to remain.

I see two potential solutions to this conundrum. One is for him to instruct Hiddink, if and when he to returns to Moscow in the summer (and the Dutchman still insists its when), to pick the late Lev Yashin in goal and stick a pair of 18 stone babooshkas from Omsk in the heart of midfield. This will ensure that Russia finish third in their World Cup qualifying group behind near certain winners Germany and the gallant Welsh. In that case there would no play-off to detain him, and so long as he carries his Geiger counter at all times and avoids going for tea at the Kremlin, Hiddink would be free to return to London in November.

The other is that he orders Hiddink to sabotage Chelsea, by taking Huerelho Gomes on loan and preferring him in goal to Petr Cech, and also by replacing the Ricardo Carvalho-John Terry central defensive pairing with Mickey Droy and David Webb. In that event, no one at Stamford Bridge will miss the Dutchman a bit.

My own preference is for the second plan, and starting tomorrow. Failing that, it's hard to see Spurs recording that second League win since 1573. Harry Redknapp's team is undoubtedly improving, and the wins against Middlesbrough and Aston Villa have effectively slain all terror of relegation. But Chelsea are also on the rise, and from a slightly higher launch pad. Considering how much more the game means to them, now that their title ambitions are rekindled, the 10/11 odds on Chelsea looks alluring.

With Cech back on form, Carvalho restored to fitness, Michael Essien majestic in midfield beside Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba terrorising defences once again, Chelsea's spine looks capable of capturing the Champions League, let alone three points at Tottenham.

The latter's hopes will rest entirely with Aaron Lennon, who currently looks world class in every regard other than the one area - trifling for a winger - of crossing the ball. If Ashley Cole is below par against him at left back, possibly through carrying a rolling pin-related knock (go Cheryl!), Lennon may just do to Chelsea what his lookalike the Hood never managed to do the Tracy family in Thunderbirds, and destroy them.

If not, and while a third consecutive draw is a live possibility, there can only be one winner. Whatever Disraeli may have thought of them, statistics seldom tell whoppers in football. They can contradict each other, however, so for Tottenham fans flailing about for reasons to be cheerful in the face of so much evidence, let's conclude with one more.

One of tomorrow's rivals is the only London Premier League club not to have won a single league derby game this season, and by some inexplicable quirk of fate it isn't Spurs.