WHEN ALLI BEAT SARRI
It was the brilliant performance that rejuvenated Dele had threatened for weeks.. it was the terrible display that the Chelsea boss had feared was about to happen
HAD you listened to boss Maurizio Sarri then you would have seen this result coming.
Sarri has supervised an impressive start to the season for Chelsea but the Blues boss had warned his players about being slow out of the blocks.
And against Tottenham on Saturday the game was already beyond them before they’d even woken.
Dele Alli, who scored a fine goal and weighed in with an assist, completely stifled Chelsea linchpin Jorginho as Tottenham showed how to derail their London neighbours.
In 90 minutes at Wembley Alli suggested that he can be the driving force in midfield that Tottenham are looking for.
It was Alli who scored the early opener with a brilliant header and who set up HeungMin Son’s goal with a terrific ball down the line.
Chelsea were completely undone in midfield because Alli so effectively nullified Jorginho.
Midfield colleague N’Golo Kante is being wasted in an unfamiliar No.8 role and Mateo Kovacic had a stinker.
Then you had Alvaro Morata, constantly drifting offside, giving a neat impression of a Sunday League player while at the back David Luiz appeared to go AWOL.
All the problems that saw Chelsea finish fifth last season were exposed by Spurs, who on this evidence won’t let Manchester City and Liverpool have it all their own way at the top of the Premier League.
The strange thing about Tottenham is that, while their start has been good in terms of results, Mauricio Pochettino has not been happy with performances, particularly in the Champions League. But on Saturday they were at their very best, with Alli (shaking hands with Pochettino, above) at the heart of everything.
Pochettino said: “He is so competitive. He is a player who loves to compete with and beat opponents. He is a top player.
“He is such a talented player and an amazing character. Sometimes you need to control the character. He’s still so young and he needs control and we’re here to help him.
“He was very good. He was at his best and very consistent. He made a massive impact when he joined us two-and-a-half years ago. But it is never easy for a young guy to be consistent when so many things happen, and many things have happened because he is so young.
“He makes a lot of mistakes still, but we want to help him with his career, we want to give him a really strong base and foundation to go higher.”
It was a view echoed by Alli, whose respect for Pochettino is obvious.
“He makes it very clear what you have to do,” said Alli. “Going into the game, you know your role and what you have to do. You don’t have to worry about anything else. Your football is natural, it’s what you’ve been doing for a long time.
“So as long as we’re clear on our roles and responsibilities, we can enjoy playing. I think working with Poch you quickly get to know how good he is. He’s an amazing manager tactically. For this win, a lot of it was down to work we did tactically: on the front foot, pushing up high.
”He’s managing the squad well, rotating when he needs to, picking the players he feels are best on that day. It’s important for the team, to have players who are fresh and ready to go. Everyone knows their roles.”
And Alli revealed that stopping Jorginho had been a big part of Tottenham’s plan. “We know he is a great player.They’ve been performing very well and he’s a big part of them playing out from the back and dominating possession. He’s obviously a very good player and likes getting on the ball, and we knew that.
“We thought that if we could stop that by winning the ball high we would do well. So I wanted to be as close to him as possible to make sure that we did win the ball up high, break early and create the chances that we did. On another day we could have scored a lot more.”
After Alli had given Spurs an eighth-minute lead, Kane’s pot-shot from distance made it 2-0 and Son (above) made the game safe with a lovely third, cutting in from the right and firing home a left-foot shot into the far corner.
Olivier Giroud’s late strike was a consolation Chelsea did not deserve.