Tottenham exploit Chelsea's defence to pick a 3-1 win
Tottenham hosted Chelsea at Wembley in the London derby on Saturday and scored for fun against the only unbeaten team in Europe's top 5 leagues. Tottenham absolutely battered Chelsea. Pochettino's men dominated the entire game and were successful in nullify Eden Hazard.
Spurs managed to win two consecutive matches against Chelsea for the first time in 31 years. Chelsea drew 0-0 against Everton in their previous game, while Tottenham had won 1-0 against Crystal Palace. Everyone expected an interesting game where the two Premier League heavyweights would've battled for supremacy. It looked like only the Spurs' squad showed up in Wembley, the Chelsea squad we all knew was missing.
It took only 8 minutes for Spurs to punish Chelsea for their awful defending when Dele Alli headed the first goal of the match from Cristian Eriksen's free-kick. Chelsea's defence looked quite off-colour and shaky. 8 minutes later, England's captain and star striker Harry Kane doubled the lead when his shot from long range ended up in the back of the net.
David Luiz could've done better to stop that second goal. Also, Kepa didn't move a muscle to stop that Kane shot. There was also a feeling of rage among Chelsea supporters when Martin Atkinson did not give a penalty after Eden Hazard was brought down in Tottenham's box.
Son Heung-Min almost scored 2 goals in the first half after being able to glide past David Luiz quite comfortably. Players like Son, Alli and Aurier had given their best performances of their career so far, on the other hand, David Luiz played in the same way he played against Germany in 2014 WC semi-final where Brazil lost 7-1.
Son killed the game in the 54th minute when he scored his 50th Tottenham goal in style. Brilliant individual skill to score the goal as he dribbled past Jorginho and David Luiz with ease. Pochettino's master-plan to beat Chelsea was flawlessly executed by the Tottenham players. They were quick on the counter, they were intercepting through balls, cutting the passing lines and most importantly, they were giving no space to Jorginho.
Sarri's tactics revolve around Jorginho. Jorginho plays as the Central Defensive Midfielder in this system where he plays the role of a "Regista" i.e the one who controls the game from midfield. For eg.Andrea Pirlo for Juventus. Tottenham effectively pressed Jorginho to give him as less time and space to move the ball around.
Jorginho was outpaced by Son most of the times and this gave Tottenham an edge above Chelsea.
Eventually, Chelsea managed to get a consolation goal when Giroud headed one home in the 85th minute. But the damage was already done.
Thus, there were a few things which were quite evident. David Luiz is still error-prone. He may have started to show improvement, but Luiz still remains one of the most error-prone defenders in the world. Jorginho's defensive abilities looked awful. Jorginho may be a great passer of the ball, but he's defensively awful and Tottenham exploited this weakness. On the other hand, Mauricio Pochettino got his tactics on point and he out-witted Sarri. Needless to say, Tottenham are deadly when Alli, Kane, Eriksen and Son play together.