Nineteen years have passed since Spurs won at home against Chelsea, though it is a mere 16 years since they beat them at all in the league, Gary Lineker chipping in with a goal at Stamford Bridge in February 1990.

Still, Tottenham's captain Ledley King chooses to look on the bright side of football life in this matter, as he needs to after a depressing six months in which a broken bone in his foot deprived him of a place in England's World Cup squad and a knee injury then meant he missed the start of this season.

King, his old, calm, assured self against Brugge, insists that being trampled by Chelsea for all those years will not be to the forefront of his thinking. "We know we will be up against a quality side and that's all I am aware of, playing the team that's in front of me and going out to win. Their record against us in previous years doesn't really matter, we'll be going for the three points, not thinking about records. Anyway, that is something a lot of our team won't be aware of because we have got a lot of new players here. But I've been here a long time now, so I'm well aware Chelsea have always been a tough team to beat."

King and his colleagues are able to point to a sharp improvement since their first six Premiership matches brought four defeats and just four points. At pitchside after Thursday's victory, King said, "We are in good spirits right now, eight games unbeaten.

We are still not playing great football, not as well as we played last season, but we are getting that resilience back, that toughness to beat.

I thought tonight, in the second half especially, we turned it on a bit and that will put us in good spirits for Sunday."

That said, King acknowledged, "The gap between us is still big. We are no way ready to be challenging for the title yet, we all recognise that. We've got a young side and we're still trying to build.

Last season was a good one for us [Spurs finished fifth] but we realised this season was going to be a lot tougher.

We haven't started as well as we would have liked but slowly we are finding our feet."

The good spirits King referred to were in growing evidence against Brugge. Paul Robinson, bolstered by repeated assurances from the stands that he remains "number one for England" has put behind him his Zagreb air shot and kept goal without flaw, something he will need to repeat today.

In midfield, the return of Didier Zokora introduced much-needed Essien-style steel to midfield, while the striking combination of Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane, which supplied all three goals, could provide problems for Chelsea if they are paired again this afternoon, as they deserve to be.

The bear-hug with which manager Martin Jol rewarded the Bulgarian came closer to inflicting structural damage than anything a Brugge defender had managed.

"Dimitar really showed his qualities, " said King. "If we can get the ball to him in the right areas he is a great finisher, and he is starting to show that." Unlike Chelsea's snarling affair at the Nou Camp, Spurs-Brugge was an honestly-contested occasion of smiles, handshakes and just one yellow card, administered by an excellent Spanish referee, Alberto Undiano.

Perhaps it would be too much to hope for a repeat of all those qualities this afternoon, and King opted for a diplomatic response to a question about the inclination of Chelsea's top scorer, Didier Drogba, to fall to earth more readily than most.

"He is a clever player and there are clever players around who wait for a bit of contact and go down. I will need to be clever myself in the way I tackle. But I've been up against him a few times now and enjoy the challenge against this style of opponent.

"We realise Chelsea are a tough team to beat, they don't give much away. A team like Arsenal will probably scare opponents more, the way they open you up, maybe Manchester United as well, but you realise Chelsea are probably the toughest to get a result against. They know how to get the job done, that's why they are champions, but it's too early to say whether they'll be as good as Man United were when they won the Premiership on numerous occasions. In five, six years, the way they are going, possibly yes.

"So this is not the easiest game for us to step up to our best, but it's a chance for us to really lift the place. If we can get a result it could kick-start the season."

What Spurs should bear in mind is that no bad run goes on forever. Once there was a much-quoted statistic that Spurs had not won at Liverpool since 1912, the year of the Titanic, but they eventually sank that particular record too.

FA PREMIERSHIP TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR v CHELSEA White Hart Lane, 4.00 Live, Sky Sports 1, 3.30