Battle of the Bridge II
Chelsea come from behind to beat Tottenham – and stay top
They are back at the top of the Premier League and it should be said that Chelsea’s most-capable manager, Antonio Conte, burnished his reputation for tactical mastery a little further with a half-time fix that proved decisive in his team’s seventh straight league victory.
Dreadful for long periods of the first half, Chelsea came roaring back after the break to win a match that Tottenham Hotspur’s players had previously come to regard as payback for the way in which their hopes of the title last season were finally extinguished at Stamford Bridge in May.
No payback, just more pain and the first league defeat of the season for the club that have not won in the league at Stamford Bridge since February 1990.
Conte acknowledged that Pedro’s late first-half equaliser unexpectedly changed the complexion of the game but it was notable that his side were sent out for the second half re-energised and in hot pursuit of a second goal, which came from Victor Moses within six minutes. They were a different side after half-time.
As for Spurs, the second half was the kind of performance that got them knocked out of the Champions League group stages within five games, with a bad reaction to the Chelsea equaliser after Christian Eriksen had given his side the lead. There was no staying power from a side who had the game in their grip but allowed it to slip away.
It seemed to get to their manager, Mauricio Pochettino, who allowed himself to be riled by the constant appeals and demands of Conte’s staff and ended up deep in conference with his opposite number with a few minutes left, making his complaints known. He was defiant afterwards but it felt like a manager trying to stick up for his players, no matter what.
“If you analyse the whole game then we deserved, at a minimum, the draw,” he said. “In football it can be difficult to explain when you conceded two goals and you play better than your opponent. They were clinical in front of goal and we were not. I am not concerned about anything. After a game like that you only have to feel proud.” He stuck to his guns that his side had been the better team in spite of the result. Conte was prepared to concede that Spurs had begun the game with much greater intensity and then after that he said he “liked the reaction” of his players. “In the second half we exploited the situations we didn’t exploit in the first half,” he said.
Those previously unexploited situations? For a start he got his wing-backs into the game after the break, Moses scoring the winner and Marcos Alonso missing a chance for the third. He also seemed to reset the balance in midfield where Spurs outnumbered the home side at all times in the first half and when the chances came, Chelsea took two of their three.
“They needed fewer chances than us to score twice,” Pochettino said. “We created many and only scored one. Maybe we were a little bit better but on the result, they were better. When we conceded the goals it is true we lost a lot of control of the game.” It was all Pochettino’s boys before the first Chelsea goal and for the first time since his team lost to Arsenal on Sept 24, Conte had looked out of his depth at times in the first half, in charge of a team that could not get on the ball, could not threaten their opponents, and did not know how to change it. In the centre of midfield, Dele Alli was active at all times, and effective in the goal that Eriksen scored after 11 minutes. It was not the first time that Alli had bowled forward, straight at the Spurs defence and on this occasion there was a collision of sorts with David Luiz and the ball broke to the Dane. His goal was struck ferociously with the left foot and beat Thibaut Courtois inside his near post. It had been coming, with Spurs in control of the match and nothing of any note from key figures like N’Golo Kanté, Eden Hazard and the two wing-backs.
As for the Chelsea defence, it was the first time they had conceded in the league since the Arsenal game and the first time in 600 minutes and more than six games of league football. The team were trapped in their own half with Mousa Dembélé and Victor Wanyama particularly strong at closing the home team down high up the pitch. Chelsea had not created a single chance until the final minute of the half when Pedro found himself in an extraordinary amount of space in the left channel just outside Spurs’ area. The winger was at first unaware how much time he had and instinctively looked wide but he detected the space, span inside and curled the ball past Hugo Lloris.
It was a wonderful finish, albeit assisted by some poor defending, but it takes a very a good footballer indeed to punish an opponent as clinically as that.
The goal gave Chelsea a parity they barely deserved and also the opportunity for their manager to reorganise at half-time which he did well.
Chelsea moved the ball more quickly from the start of the second half and Alonso and Moses were back in the game at last.
Moses scored the second on 51 minutes and Alonso should have got the third shortly after that but blew a great chance laid on to him by Diego Costa’s cut-back into the area. Before then, Chelsea had turned over possession quickly for their second, Dembélé losing out in midfield and then the ball going from Pedro to Costa down the left wing.
His ball into the area went through a group of players to Moses, coming in late on the far side and with no one near him. His shot clipped Lloris and struck Jan Vertonghen on the line but was moving so quickly that the defender was unable to react in time to keep the ball out.
Pochettino sent on Harry Winks and Georges-Kévin Nkoudou whose one insurgence down the left past Branislav Ivanovic left the poor old Serb, himself a substitute, with his hands in the air in supplication. As it was, Chelsea saw this one out comfortably.