Chelsea vs. Tottenham Hotspur: Do-or-Die Time for Spurs

Tottenham Hotspur will travel the 10 or so miles to Stamford Bridge this weekend to face Chelsea in a must-win fixture.

Tottenham sit in fifth place, four points behind Manchester City, who currently hold the coveted last Champions League position. A loss on Saturday coupled with a City win against last-place West Ham would see Spurs fall seven points below Manchester City, an almost insurmountable gap with only four games to play.

Given the circumstances, Tottenham know that they must come out with the form that led them to wins over Milan, Inter and Arsenal this season.

Last weekend, Simon Cox's brilliant strike stole two points away from Tottenham, but Spurs fans should be very pleased with the goal-scoring form the team has displayed over the last three weeks. In the last three games, they have scored scored goals.

More importantly, four of those goals have come from strikers, as opposed to only 11 goals that Peter Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe had netted in the previous 30 games. In order to compete with Chelsea this weekend, the strikers are going to need to finish their shots.

Back in December, the two teams played out a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane. Pavlyuchenko gave Tottenham a 1-0 lead in the 15th minute through a splendid left-footed strike, but Didier Drogba equalized in the 70th minute with a thundering shot that overpowered Heurelho Gomes' fingers.

Chelsea were awarded a penalty in injury time and would've taken all three points, if not for a wonderful stop from Gomes. Chelsea was the better side that day, winning 62 percent of the possession and forcing Gomes to make seven saves, while Petr Cech was only called upon when Spurs put the ball in the back of the net.

As mentioned before, the Tottenham strikers must be as dangerous as they have been recently and certainly more successful than they were in the first matchup.

Tottenham will make one change to the starting lineup after learning that Benoit Assou-Ekotto will miss much of the run-in due to the hamstring injury that forced him off against West Brom. Therefore, Gareth Bale will move to left back, but he will still push forward whenever possible.

Alongside Bale should be Michael Dawson, William Gallas and Younes Kaboul. The rest of the 4-4-2 should include Luka Modric, Rafael Van Der Vaart, Tom Huddlestone and Sandro in the midfield with Jermain Defoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko up front.

Manager Harry Redknapp may elect to start Aaron Lennon in place of Tom Huddlestone or Sandro, but will most likely bring the speedster off of the bench.

Tottenham Projected Lineup (4-4-2)

They will play a 4-4-2 in the sense that there will be four defenders, four midfielders and two strikers, but Bale will constantly push up and play as a left winger, Kaboul will attack the right wing, Sandro will play a little behind Modric and Huddlestone and Van der Vaart will mostly stay in front of the two center midfielders, but behind the strikers.

                            Gomes

Kaboul           Gallas          Dawson         Bale

Huddlestone  Sandro  Van Der Vaart   Modric

        Pavlyuchenko                        Defoe

Chelsea Projected Lineup (4-4-2)

Manager Carlo Ancelotti has stated that he will start Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba as striking partners against Spurs. Michael Essien will be set to start, however it doesn't appear as though Ramires will be fit to play in time.

          Torres      Drogba

Mikel   Lampard Essien   Malouada

Ivanovic   Terry   Luiz        Cole

                    Cech