SARRI SEIZES BACK CONTROL
Redemption for Chelsea manager as Trippier own goal caps Tottenham shocker
Setting aside the result for a moment, this was a night of many victories for beleaguered Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri. Perhaps the biggest came after 59 minutes. Chelsea were leading through a well-taken goal by the excellent Pedro. Yet even so, when the board was raised to reveal that Willian would be coming on for eden Hazard, it could have been another awkward moment.
the fans might not take kindly to Sarri withdrawing their most gifted player against such dangerous opponents. equally, Hazard might not like it, either. But there it was; not a murmur of dissent from the locals, not a flicker of annoyance from the player.
Hazard marched off, got a hug of thanks from Sarri, and gave him a pat on the back in return. the fans remained fully supportive. Maybe the nadir on Sunday was a turning point. Maybe there was more to this rejuvenated display than a manager deciding to go down doing it his way.
Maybe the players have acknowledged that the acts of mutiny went too far, and that this manager deserves better; maybe the executives agreed and have at last empowered Sarri in their conversations.
Certainly, he no longer looked a touchline stooge as Chelsea won deservedly, administering what is surely the final blow to tottenham’s title ambitions. Sarri may have turned a corner, while Spurs’ race looks run.
nine points adrift of Liverpool now, eight points off second-placed Manchester City, it would need two very good teams to collapse alarmingly for tottenham to stand a chance of challenging now.
Chelsea, meanwhile, are back in the mix for the Champions League spots, albeit still sixth. they were urgent and faster than they have been, a lot nearer to what we have come to understand as Sarri-ball. So, that was another win.
equally, by relegating insubordinate keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga to the bench, and promoting Willy Caballero, Sarri reasserted his authority — and was vindicated as the deputy kept a clean sheet.
Whether Sarri wishes to reinforce the point by keeping faith with Caballero at Fulham on Sunday remains to be seen. He gave the manager no reason to be dropped.
tottenham were looking for their first home-and-away league wins over Chelsea since 1971, but that never looked likely. this was a very disappointing performance.
Aside from odd spells, Chelsea had the best of it, and Pedro’s goal capped a quite splendid individual performance. He picked up a ball down the right from Cesar Azpilicueta, cut inside toby Alderweireld, and as Davinson Sanchez lunged in desperation, stuck it through the legs of Hugo Lloris.
if further proof were needed that Sarri’s luck might be changing, it came in the 84th minute. not just a goal that made the outcome certain, but a fluke.
For tottenham, it represented humiliation. this is the ground where they experienced a very public meltdown, conceding the title to Leicester in 2016, and the denouement here will be remembered almost as fondly by the home crowd. Caballero aimed a goal-kick forward, which Olivier giroud flicked on. Kieran trippier tried to shepherd it back to Lloris, but did not look up to gauge his goalkeeper’s position and instead passed it out of his reach, directly into his own net. the mockery was loud and long.
And probably not confined to the stands, either. there is always an edge when these teams meet.
the last act of significance was a half- scuffle between Harry Kane and David Luiz that saw both men booked. Kane was probably lucky not to be sent off, having already lowered his head into the face of Azpilicueta during a first-half row. Had Chelsea’s captain made more of that, Kane might even have received a straight red card.
the first-half flashpoint came on 24 minutes, after trippier had gone down claiming to have caught a blow to the head.
Chelsea were away, and in a good position, but Mateo Kovacic was instructed to put the ball into touch as the play slowed to a halt, an instruction that angered him.
From the restart — trippier’s injuries did not turn out to be lifethreatening — Spurs returned the ball to their defenders for it to be kicked deep downfield. this was duly done, but it arrived at a difficult height for Luiz to control.
As he got to grips with the bouncing ball, Kane sensed a chance and closed him down. Luiz got out of trouble but took furious exception to this, and when the ball went dead he let Kane know. Azpilicueta came over all masterful four days too late, and Kane reacted.
Azpilicueta’s reaction might not have been the most professional but it was interesting to see him wanting to take a lead, after playing the shrinking violet on Sunday. A lot about Chelsea’s mood seems to have been altered by their public shaming. there were a number of players who performed as if needing to prove a point.
it was a very public argument at Wembley, and a very plain public reaction. Chelsea’s players did not want to be on the wrong side of that again. Caballero was under pressure to rise to the occasion, too, and made that clear when he laid out his own player, Antonio Rudiger, while carrying all before him from a Spurs free-kick. As the defender was the man who prevented Sarri from getting to Arrizabalaga at Wembley, maybe it wasn’t as innocent as it seemed.
it was a quiet game for Caballero,
with Tottenham barely threatening until five minutes before halftime, culminating in a mighty Christian Eriksen shot against the crossbar. Caballero had one hand raised in token defiance but looked to be caught out by the late dip; a lucky escape in the circumstances.
Much like Lloris’s let-off at the other end in the 19th minute, when he passed the ball straight to Pedro. He fed Hazard in the middle, who laid it back to Gonzalo Higuain. It should have been a goal but the Argentine curled wide. This wasn’t the only time Chelsea’s striker was found wanting. In the sixth minute, a halfclearance from Moussa Sissoko fell to him, but he snatched at the shot and struck a post.
As for the crowd reaction after Sunday’s debacle, it was much as expected. Caballero received a more favourable reaction to his promotion than would previously have been expected, while boos and the odd expletive greeted Arrizabalaga’s presence on the bench. That, however, will be the least of Sarri’s concerns.