Italian Roberto De Zerbi, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, has hinted at his frustration with Chelsea's repeated signings of players from his former club Brighton, but he insists he needs no extra motivation when his side visit Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Chelsea have spent more than £300 million to sign 16 players and staff members from Brighton since the BlueCo group completed its takeover of the club in May 2022.
De Zerbi took charge at Brighton in September of that year, after Graham Potter left the club to join Chelsea's technical leadership.
Over his two-year spell, Chelsea broke the British transfer record to sign Moisés Caicedo from Brighton for £115 million and Marc Cucurella for £63 million. They also brought in goalkeeper Robert Sánchez for £25 million and landed Paul Winstanley and Sam Jewell in recruitment roles.
Asked for his view of all that, De Zerbi said on Friday, as reported by ESPN: "What do you think? (Not great?), no, not at all. They bought good players: Caicedo, João Pedro, and Welbeck now, Facundo Buonanotte, Valentín Barco, Robert Sánchez, and Levi Colwill."
The Italian coach added: "I am always motivated whether against Chelsea or any other team. When you work at Brighton, you work to make the club happy. And to make your club happy, you sometimes need to sell players, because players want and push to leave for a bigger club. This is football, and it is a natural part of it."
His focus instead fell on Tottenham's dismal record at Stamford Bridge, where the side have won just once in 33 Premier League visits.
De Zerbi continued: "For me, this is an additional motivation, and I want the players to use this negative record to give us more drive, mentality and energy to win the match, because we have enough quality to achieve victory."
On the fitness front, Pedro Porro, Andy Robertson and Omar Marmoush are all ready to face Chelsea.
Lucas Bergvall and Destiny Udogie (both knee injuries) and Savinho (a muscle injury) all remain sidelined, and Rodrigo Bentancur is out through suspension.
A doubt hangs over James Maddison after he scored in his first start in almost 18 months against Coventry City last Monday. Dejan Kulusevski is also being assessed following his return in the same match after a 526-day absence.