CHELSEA UP FOR A SCRAP!
Jorginho punishes Leeds as clubs revive their 1970s feud
OLD enmities do not easily die. The embers of a historic grudge can quickly flare into life again. And the feud between these clubs was given fresh life in a feisty encounter, which ultimately saw Chelsea come out on top against an injury-ravaged Leeds.
Chelsea had steadied themselves after their recent wobble in form. Yet in the heat of the encounter, as Junior Firpo and Kai Havertz clashed at the final whistle, prompting almost all 22 players to rush to join in a mass shoving match, which saw Antonio Rudiger held back as Illan Meslier gestured at him to be quiet, it seemed the bragging rights were almost more important than the points.
The spirit of Ron Harris and Billy Bremner seemed to infuse players born decades after those brutal Seventies encounters had entered domestic football folklore. Footballers from continents and countries which would have seemed exotic and out-of-reach back in the day seemed to have absorbed the ancestral rites of an ancient tribal hostility.
‘If you have Toni, you have Toni,’ was Thomas Tuchel’s verdict, having watched his defender sprint across the pitch to get involved in the pushing and shoving at full time. ‘You can’t have him be the emotional leader and suddenly not get involved if there are teammates to protect or an argument. This is 100 per cent Toni. But hopefully there was no harm done.’
Marcelo Bielsa was somewhat more prosaic. Speaking through his translater, the quote provided was: ‘In a game with emotions so high, [with] two liberating passions . . . at the end, this was excessive [but] within the margin of what’s tolerable and it was justified. All of us hoped it would not happen.’ Roughly translated, he meant it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Tuchel was right, though, in that Rudiger would not accept anything less than a victory, even if Chelsea were not at their best. Yet he was not alone. A game in which Mason Mount, Marcos Alonso and Cesar Azpilicueta all either gestured to or celebrated in front of the Leeds fans, while Raphinha did the same, performing the samba in front of The Shed after scoring his penalty, was not short of competitive edge.
The intensity of the occasion seemed to be inflamed as Leeds fans goaded Alonso with a chant about the fatal car accident in which he was involved 10 years ago. Unsurprisingly, that cut through. When Alonso provided a decisive cross for Mount to score an equaliser, he was directly in front of the Leeds fans and he turned to celebrate there.
Even the angelic-looking Mount ran across to place his finger to his lips. Later, as Azpilicueta was subbed and walked off in front of the Leeds fans, he made a gesture, which prompted missiles to which the Spaniard responded with kisses.
In between all that, we had three controversial penalties, five goals and a spectacular strike from teenager Joe Gelhardt with his first touch of the ball.
Yet how Chelsea were made to fight for the points. First half, they were struggling. Chelsea’s wing-backs were nullified by manto-man marking from Jack Harrison on the left and Jamie Shackleton on the right. Neither Alonso nor Reece James could get in the game. Mount could not get on the ball to create anything for Havertz.
Leeds took the lead after 28 minutes when Alonso slid in on Dan James, who had threaded the ball between his legs before being taken out by the wing-back. Raphinha took the penalty, scored and then performed that samba.
Having coped with Chelsea so well, Bielsa would have been immensely frustrated at the manner in which Leeds conceded the equaliser on 42 minutes. Keeper Meslier tried a chipped ball out from the back which left Stuart Dallas exposed to an onrushing Alonso. He fed Timo Werner, who returned the pass to Alonso, by now heading for the byline. Alonso pulled the ball back for Mount, who swept it in from inside the area. Leeds’s defensive positioning, so meticulous up to that point, was all awry, unable to cope with a swift turnover of possession.
Tension broken, Chelsea approached the second half more confidently, though Leeds’s defiance held until Raphinha, back to help out at a corner, made the rashest of challenges, sliding through scissor-legged as he wiped out Rudiger in the penalty area.
True, he did play the ball but that seemed incidental. It took VAR to overturn Chris Kavanagh’s refusal to award the penalty. Jorginho stepped up, performed his skippy run-up and drove the penalty into the top left corner for 2-1.
Yet Leeds hit back on 83 minutes when 19-year-old Gelhardt, a Liverpudlian plucked from the Wigan academy when that club were in administration, came on. Attacking quickly, Mateusz Klich played in Tyler Roberts, who crossed for Gelhardt. He finished magnificently from just inside the box for 2-2 with his first touch.
Then came the final twist. Chelsea were throwing many forward but there was little danger in injury time when Rudiger received the ball in the box. Yet Klich clumsily kicked him, missing the ball. It was soft but was never going to be overturned by VAR. Jorginho provided the denouement, sending his penalty kick in the opposite corner to his previous penalty and with a confident strike for 3-2.