WINS FOR CITY AND CHELSEA AS VAR CAUSES HAVOC AGAIN
Joy for Giroud, Chelsea and Lampard but it’s more misery for Jose, he’s got ....
AFTER their Champions League defeat against RB Leipzig last week, Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho said that leading his team into the tie had been like going to a fight with a gun that had no bullets.
At Stamford Bridge yesterday, Spurs and Mourinho did not just turn up at his old stomping ground for their crucial clash with Chelsea without the bullets. This time there was no sign of the gun either.
This time, in fact, there was no sign of anything at all. After this limp 2-1 defeat that left Spurs four points adrift of Frank Lampard’s team in the battle for fourth place, Mourinho appeared in full melodramatic mourning garb at his press conference.
It is a tired old act but Mourinho is still flogging it for all it is worth. By the time he had finished bemoaning his fate it felt less like Spurs were still competing on three fronts this season and more as if their manager and players were being led in wooden carts towards the guillotine. ‘It is going to be three long months,’ Mourinho said, shaking his head.
Any Spurs fans — or players — expecting a rallying cry after a significant setback like this would have been sorely disappointed. All that was missing was a dirge for a soundtrack and sackcloth and ashes for his props. ‘It is an incredible negative situation,’ he said of the injuries to Harry Kane and Son Heung-min. He should have bought some back-up in January.
‘We had zero strikers on the pitch, zero strikers on the bench and zero strikers in the stand,’ he said. He did not mention that he had left the team’s best attacking talent, Dele Alli, on the bench but that did not fit the deprivation narrative. Maybe Alli had exhausted himself by throwing a bottle and boot around after he was subbed against Leipzig.
The truth, of course, is that at this stage of the season every team is coping with injuries and if Spurs are struggling it is because of a lack of foresight from the manager and, more particularly, chairman Daniel Levy. Lest Mourinho forgets, Chelsea did not furnish Lampard with any reinforcements in January.
Chelsea’s win represented a second successive victory for Lampard over his old boss and the second time in a few days that Mourinho has been bested by a much younger manager. Julian Nagelsmann masterminded Leipzig’s victory at Spurs. It happens increasingly often that Mourinho is made to look like a manager out of his time.
Chelsea’s success, courtesy of two fine goals by Olivier Giroud and Marcos Alonso, arrested a run of four games without a victory and put a little daylight between them and those pursuing them. It was a big victory at a critical stage of the season and Lampard will hope it will breathe fresh life into his side as Mourinho (below) wrestles with the sheer, unparalleled horror of his situation.
If Spurs were flattered by the scoreline, they were also fortunate not to have been reduced to 10 men seven minutes into the second half. When Giovani Lo Celso was tackled by Cesar Azpilicueta in front of the dug-outs, Lo Celso stamped down hard on Azpilicueta’s shin as he lay on the turf. Referee Michael Oliver did not punish Lo Celso but the incident was referred to VAR. The VAR at Stockley Park, David Coote, viewed replays of the incident and, to general astonishment, decided that Lo Celso’s stamp did not merit a sending off. Later, to even more astonishment, Stockley Park admitted it had got the decision wrong.
There will be another VAR feeding frenzy now but there is nothing wrong with the technology, just those operating it. Changes need to be made to the system quickly.
Chelsea and Spurs had started with similar systems, something Lampard attributed to Mourinho being leaked information from old friends at Chelsea. Mourinho laughed off the suggestion but Lampard was serious.
Chelsea had dominated early possession but it was Spurs who created the first opportunity. Jorginho, the master of the short,
simple pass, dithered on the edge of his own box and gave the ball away. It was worked to Lucas Moura, who sidestepped one defender and then unleashed a low drive that Willy Caballero pushed away.
Chelsea hit back. Hugo Lloris had to dive sharply to his right to stop a low strike from Mason Mount arrowing inside his near post and then Ross Barkley whistled a shot across goal from the edge of the area that Lloris was relieved to see fly just wide.
After quarter of an hour, Chelsea made their pressure count. Spurs allowed Giroud, restored to the starting line-up by Lampard after a long absence, to run behind their defence on to a long ball forward. His shot was well saved and when Barkley smashed the rebound against the post, it seemed the visitors may have escaped.
But the second rebound fell to Giroud and this time Lloris could not stop his fierce left-foot shot. It was the Frenchman’s first league start since November and his first goal since April.
Ten minutes before the break, Spurs briefly shook off their inertia and began to press for an equaliser. Azpilicueta made a fine block to deny Moura and Caballero had to stretch to tip over a header from Davinson Sanchez. Spurs fans, grouped in the away section at the Shed End, thought they had scored when Japhet Tanganga ran on to a pass from Toby Alderweireld.
He miscontrolled the ball on the volley but Caballero had come racing out of his goal and was caught wrong-footed. It seemed for a moment as though Tanganga would only need to tap the ball in but it had too much pace and he could not quite reach it before it ran wide. Three minutes after the break, Chelsea went further ahead. They broke down the right and moved the ball across the face of the Spurs box, Mount spreading it on to Barkley and Barkley moving it on to Alonso.
Alonso met it as sweetly as anyone could and the ball sped unerringly beyond the outstretched left hand of Lloris. Tottenham were fortunate Lo Celso was allowed to stay on the pitch soon afterwards but Spurs’ reprieve made little difference to the game. Chelsea nearly went further ahead when Mount tricked his marker on the right and played in a perfect cross for substitute Tammy Abraham.
Abraham tried to guide it past Lloris but the France keeper got down quickly to smother. A few minutes later, another Lo Celso foul, this time on Mount, gave Chelsea a free-kick on the edge of the box. Alonso curled it over the wall but it cannoned off the face of the crossbar.
Spurs pulled a goal back one minute from time when substitute Erik Lamela’s shot hit Antonio Rudiger’s trailing leg.
The deflection wrong-footed Caballero and trickled inside his near post but Spurs did not deserve anything from the game and time ran out before they could threaten any further.