Tottenham Hotspur is the perfect opponent for Chelsea to chase the consecutive wins record against

Nobody loves the fixture list. When it does a team a favor and delivers up a friendly run of games, nobody ever sends a basket of fruit to the Premier League’s computers. But at this time of year, the quaintly ridiculous tradition of festive football collides with the whims of the television companies. Teams end up playing more games than is strictly sensible, and everybody, including Sam Allardyce, takes it out on the poor old list.

“The lack of energy the players had showed massively,” Allardyce told the BBC. “Some people say it’s rubbish but it’s not — the players were trying 100 percent but they were not physically able to reach their usual levels ... they are shattered. You can see it with your own eyes, you don’t need to be a football manager.”

Occasionally, however, things work out nicely. As you may have heard, Chelsea go into their away game at Tottenham Hotspur in pursuit not just of a win, three points, and a nine-point gap going into the FA Cup break. They are in pursuit of history: a win will be their 14th in a row, and that will equal the record in the English top flight, both Premier League and before, which is currently held by the 2002 vintage of Arsenal.

(We should note here that the last game of that Arsenal run came in a different season to the preceding 13, so any sensible footballing culture would simply ignore it. But this is not one of those, and we must work with what we have.)

Since history should be earned, not simply given, it’s convenient from the neutral perspective that they have to go and get it at White Hart Lane. Spurs are pretty good with solid form, having won six of their last eight games, including the last four on the bounce.

Beyond that, they’re in good goal-scoring form. They’ve only failed to find the net in one of their last 10 games — Harry Kane has three in the last two games, and Dele Alli, who so often sets the tone for the rest of the side, five in the last three.

Then there’s the specifics of the matchup. Not all Chelsea’s wins have been strolls, but only two sides have really threatened to actually beat them. One was Manchester City, who missed a raft of decent chances before impaling themselves on their own shattered parody of a defense. The other was Tottenham, who were the better team for 44 minutes at Stamford Bridge. They led for 33, before Pedro popped up at the end of the first half with something mildly ridiculous.

Out wide, Chelsea’s flying wingbacks will face off against Kyle Walker and Danny Rose, perhaps the best attacking fullbacks in the league. There’s even the possibility that Mauricio Pochettino will set up with a back three to give Walker and Rose even more attacking liberties than they usually take.

Either way, this is perhaps the hardest examination of Conte’s 3-4-3, of Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso, that the Premier League can provide. Both Rose and Kane had the luxury of rest a few days ago, as Tottenham dissected Watford without them, and fullbacks barreling past one another in both directions is always fun to watch.

So, too, are teams that don’t particularly like one another. And Spurs and Chelsea ... yeah, that. We’re probably not set for a repeat of last season’s ludicrous scrap at Stamford Bridge. Tottenham’s slim title chances had vaporized in a crucible of pointless hacks, futile violence, and staggering immaturity.

It culminated with somebody pushing over Guus Hiddink — the cuddliest man in football — and Cesc Fabregas complaining to an official that a nasty man had stood on his hand and it really, really hurt. Scenes that nobody wants to see. Scenes that everybody really enjoyed seeing.

Still, the fan bases hold one another in frankly undisguised contempt, the club hierarchies think one another predatory or paranoid, and there are number of highly strung, potentially narky personalities on the pitch. Jan Vertonghen, Alli, David Luiz, and Diego Costa are all likely to start, and given that Spurs in particular like to press high and leave the occasional foot in, it would be a surprise if the game drifted past, entirely edgeless. A miserable prospect for the referee, of course, but entirely appropriate for the occasion.

When history is on the line, even meaningless, trivial history like this, then the context should be as grand as possible. Arsenal’s streak, that silly 14th game aside, came at the end of the 2001-02 season, took them to the title, and included a 1-0 away at Old Trafford, which is more or less perfect. Chelsea’s run comes too early in the season to confirm a title, even though it may ultimately win them one.

But we couldn’t hope for a better completion fixture than Tottenham away. All meaning in football is ultimately contrived, after all. Everything matters when you have to earn it, and everything matters more when the opposition quite fancy ruining your day. Sometimes — not often, but sometimes — the fixture list loves you, and wants to be your friend.