Tottenham's last Stamford Bridge winners show how far that team has scattered
Spurs' solitary Premier League win at Stamford Bridge since 2018 came from a settled 4-2-3-1 built on a double pivot and a front four behind Harry Kane's absence replaced by Son — here is what became of that shape and the players who filled it.
Tottenham's only Premier League win at Stamford Bridge in the modern era came in April 2018, a 3-1 comeback built on a goal from Christian Eriksen and two from Dele Alli, as Planet Football detailed ahead of Spurs' latest trip to Chelsea.
Six straight defeats have followed in this fixture away from home, with Spurs' only win over Chelsea since 2020 coming at their own stadium in 2023. That run is the backdrop against which the 2018 side is worth revisiting.
A 4-2-3-1 shaped by a settled back four
The team that won that day lined up in a 4-2-3-1: Hugo Lloris in goal behind a back four of Kieran Trippier, Ben Davies, Davinson Sanchez and Jan Vertonghen, with a double pivot of Eric Dier and Mousa Dembele screening in front of them.
Ahead of that pivot sat Alli as the number 10, flanked by Erik Lamela on the left and Eriksen drifting in from the right, with Son Heung-min as the focal point of the attack.
It was a structure built on continuity rather than rotation, which is precisely why its unravelling since 2018 is so stark: almost every outfield role in that shape has changed hands, club and country at least once.
The double pivot has gone separate ways
Dier left Spurs for Bayern Munich in 2024, a move that felt unusual even at the time, before joining Monaco, where he finished seventh in his first season and currently sits fifth in Ligue 1.
Dembele's path has been quieter. He left Spurs in 2019, moved to China where his deal with Beijing Guoan collapsed before he joined Guangzhou R&F instead, and retired in 2022 three appearances short of 50 for the club. He has since withdrawn from public life, with his last sighting at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in May 2024.
Eriksen's own path has been shaped by his health rather than form. After his cardiac arrest at Euro 2020, he returned via Brentford and then Manchester United, before a spell at Wolfsburg ended last year following another collapse during a Denmark friendly with Ukraine. He is now in rehabilitation in Denmark and has not formally retired.
Vertonghen left Spurs in 2020 for Benfica, moved on to Anderlecht and retired in 2025. He has since taken his coaching badges but decided against the profession, saying the "24-7" demands did not suit him as a family man, and is instead completing the UEFA Executive Master for International Players with a view to working in administration.
One survivor from the back four that shut out Chelsea
Of the back four that started that afternoon, only Davies remains at Spurs, now in his 13th season and the scorer of a late goal that sealed the club's first league win of this campaign against Coventry.
Sanchez is at Galatasaray, where he has won three consecutive league titles and a Turkish Cup since leaving Tottenham in 2023, while Trippier joined Wolves this summer, a side currently seventh in the Championship rather than challenging for promotion as pre-season billing suggested.
At the front, Lloris and Son have since reunited at LAFC, where Lloris has won the U.S. Open Cup and Son has added 12 assists and seven goals in 28 appearances, helping the club to sixth in the Western Conference.
Lamela, scorer of the 2021 Puskas Award winner after leaving Spurs, retired at AEK Athens in 2025 and is now Matias Almeyda's assistant at Mexican side Monterrey, who finished 13th in the Liga MX regular phase in 2026. Alli, by contrast, failed to rebuild his career at Everton, Besiktas and Como and now spends his time streaming on Twitch, still only 30.
Spurs return to Stamford Bridge looking for just a second Premier League win there, against a current Chelsea side with no direct link to that 2018 afternoon beyond the venue.