Chelsea (away) 05.01.2022

It was a disappointing performance after the team had picked up since Antonio Conte arrived, but his return to one of his former clubs was not a happy one.  He had to change the side around because of injuries and rotation with a busy month coming up, with Tanganga and Doherty starting with a back three in place.  Chelsea looked sharper form the off.  A high ball forward in the first minute caught Sanchez underneath it and Havertz headed on for Lukaku to run into the box on the right. Surprisingly, he looked to square the ball rather than shoot and there wasn’t a team-mate to get on the end of his pass.

Tanganga gave a short pass to Emerson on our right and the ball was intercepted and Havertz was played in on the left of the box. His shot looked like it might have been going across goal, but in trying to clear it, Davinson Sanchez could only turn the ball into his own net and this wasn’t the start that Conte and the Spurs fans behind that goal had envisaged. What was going to be hard enough anyway, didn’t really need to give Chelsea a goal start after just four minutes.

In the twelfth minute, Spurs almost presented the home team with a second goal. A cross intended for Lukaku was headed away and it dropped for Hojbjerg in the Spurs box. He rashly swung a boot to clear it, but it his Skipp and dropped to Havertz on their left of the goal. He also hurriedly shot and Lloris saved low at his near post, when a shot to the other side of the goal might have given him more of a problem.

A free-kick won when Doherty gave the ball away near the Chelsea box that stranded Davies upfield and Lukaku got fouled as Sanchez tried to win the ball off the striker. It was swung in and Tanganga won the header but it went straight at Davies and into the net to make it 2-with 34 minutes gone. It was unlucky, but it was another defensive error with the back three looking all at sea without Dier there to marshal them. 

It could have been worse five minutes before half-time when Lukaku won an unchallenged header but with all the goal to aim at glanced it wide. When crosses were coming into the Spurs box, the
back three were not winning many of them and a couple of others had gone across the box when a touch from a Chelsea player might have finished the game off before half-time.  Spurs had not turned up in the first half and Chelsea’s tempo had them on the back foot for all the game, with Kepa at the other end having an easy 45 minutes of it.

Five minutes into the second half, Spurs finally tested Kepa. Replacing Doherty with Ndombele, the defence switched to a back four and Ndombele was fouled just outside the box. Kane took it and found the gap that Lucas and Son had cleared for him but Kepa was on that side of the goal and flopped to his right to get behind it, but it wasn’t a difficult save.

Lukaku set up Ziyech on his right, but the winger’s weak left foot shot was straight at Hugo and then Spurs broke at the other end, ending with Ndombele putting a 20-yard shot way too high. Werner had a couple of chances to extend the lead wither side of Marr elbowing Harry Kane in the mouth and only getting a yellow card.  The first, he came in from their left and as the Spurs defence backed off he got into the area to curl a shot wide of the goal on Lloris’ left, when he should have hit the target and the second he was played in behind the Tottenham defence, looking suspiciously offside, but he tried to lift the ball over Hugo from just outside the area, as the Spurs captain came out and he reached up to get a hand to it and the chance went begging.

Spurs almost got a goal back when Bryan Gil drifted past Alonso on our left wing and pulled it back to Lo Celso, whose shot Kepa parried in front of goal and Tanguy was there, but so were three blue shirts and it was hacked away.

Chelsea seemed to want it more than us and our moves were few and far between but produced very little.  The second half was a bit better, but we rarely looked like scoring, so to get three next week to over-turn this result will be more than a little difficult.  I’m not saying it hasn’t been done before, but we do have a long way to go to match the intensity of the home team tonight.

East Stan