Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Chelsea: 3 reasons why Spurs beat Chelsea
Most observers went into today’s London derby between Tottenham and Chelsea expecting a tight game; the two title hopefuls seemed closely matched coming out of the international break and on paper, there appeared to be a ton of tricky battles for both teams to overcome.
In the end though, the result was a largely one-sided drubbing in favour of Spurs. Mauricio Pochettino’s side simply overwhelmed the Blues at Wembley, winning by 3 goals to 1, although realistically they could’ve scored far more in a rampant first half.
Early goals from Dele Alli and Harry Kane were added to by Heung-Min Son in the second half, and Chelsea could barely muster an answer until Olivier Giroud’s powerful header with 5 minutes remaining in the game.
Here are 3 reasons why Tottenham defeated Chelsea.
#1 Tottenham’s fast start caught Chelsea off guard
A lot was written about how Everton were able to steal a point from Chelsea in the final round of Premier League fixtures before the international break, largely stemming around the way that Marco Silva used his midfielders – namely Gylfi Sigurdsson and Idrissa Gueye – to prevent Jorginho from playing his usual metronomic role, thus cutting off Chelsea’s supply lines.
If Silva’s tactic was enough to secure a draw, though, Mauricio Pochettino took that tactic a step further today. Not only did Tottenham prevent Jorginho from taking control of the game early on, they simply prevented Chelsea from doing much at all in the opening minutes. Every time a Chelsea player received the ball they seemed to be crowded and pressed by Tottenham’s men, and it looked as if Maurizio Sarri’s squad simply weren’t prepared for this early onslaught.
Eric Dier and Moussa Sissoko in particular consistently harassed Chelsea’s trio of midfielders – N’Golo Kante, Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic – to the point that not only were they unable to use the ball, but they left their defence adrift too, allowing Spurs to open the Blues up time after time. By time Kane scored his goal in the 16th minute, the game felt like it was largely over as a contest, such was Tottenham’s dominance. This was the performance Spurs fans have waited all season for.