Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea

Chelsea are destined 5 years as squatters somewhere else whilst Stamford Bridge is turned into the egg slicer. That's going to seem like a lifetime as it completely alters the fan experience.

I went yesterday and to the European games last season. The atmosphere before the game was very muted for a big London derby and worse than those night games. The drum is not us but it does centre a chant around a beat that hits all parts of the stadium at the same time which is important. When we were playing well the atmosphere was good. When things were flat on the pitch, they were the same in the stands.

It can work in most games. I wouldn't judge too much on yesterday. If we can't beat Burnley, then things may be a bit more serious and Burnley will copy Chelsea's 10 men behind the ball tactics. We need a BIG turnout next week. See you there.

 

25-33% of those goals have been absolute worldies from Chelsea players, too. Makes the fact even more devastating!

 

On a serious note, I couldn't help but notice in the game, and Jermaine Jenas explained it quite thoroughly on MOTD2, that the reason we won this game was because, the few previous times we have played, Spurs have had success against our formation by utilising quick, attack full-backs, (Namely Walker and Rose), you did not have either of those for this game.
We packed the midfield and kept Alli quiet and starved Kane of service.
For all your possession, you didn't have many clear cut chances (Kane hitting the post being your best chance).
Your goal was a pretty bad OG by Batshit, so even then your players did not have a sniff.

Morata should have buried that header early on too.
The free kick was no ones fault, that was just a quality goal.
Our second was Lloris' fault every which way, he distributed it in a rush, to a player who was trying to walk off a knock, then let a tame shot go under his body.

Basically the best way to get at Conte's team is with fast, attacking, full-backs, which previously you have had, but now don't.

 

I don't know if you saw the whole game, it sounds like you didn't and are basing your views on the highlights and what the pundits yabbered on about. We started slowly but at the end of the first half we had you rocking. We hit the post, everyone missed the ball that went just beyond the far post. Davies' shot was well saved by Officer Crabtree and it looked like the equaliser was just a matter of time. Half time saved you and we came out much flatter at the start of the second half.

Allowing you to score first was the problem. That's meat and drink to Conte. Small foul here, kick the ball away there, argue with the ref, break up our rhythm and we start to struggle. I agree that Rose and Walker would have driven us forward faster and we miss them. The rest of it........meh!

 

Spot on. We also didn't have Rose for the cup game last season, too, which obviously made a huge difference and showed again yesterday.
If we're playing against anyone who is happy for us to have the majority of possession, without the pace from wingbacks (if we play 352), or pace from players in the "3" (in a 4231), we have a really tough time of creating any clear cut chances, as you've alluded to.
It's not just against you guys though, we see it regularly throughout the season.

 

Some good points.
We were not clinical enough in the final few minutes though. We should have been making sure we did not lose the game instead of taking silly risks. Things would be very different if it had been a draw. There'd be enormous pressure in Chelsea but as it is we have made our next 2 home matches must win games with a build up that will be dominated by "wembley jinx" media stories.

 

You need someone creative in the middle.
A flair player, like a Bale or a Hazard.
When the middle is packed, you guys seem to struggle.
The way Conte sets us up, we have a BIG achilles heel with full-backs, if they know their game, and you guys utilised it to perfection against us at WHL last season, but yesterday, you didnt.

 

Yeah every game you don't win at Wembley will just make things worse.
Having us as your first Home game this season wasn't so good.

 

I don't even know if it's specifically someone in the middle, Bodinki. Eriksen is more than capable of doing that, but it becomes difficult for him when it's so compact, through no fault of his own. When there's no one to stretch the play it requires moments of magic, which he provides regularly, but even that's hard if you have a back 5 and potentially 2 holding players to contend with, as well as no one with the threat of raw pace who the opposition have to keep an eye on. It's ultimately what ends up making our attacks sluggish, often sideways and "half chancey".
When we play a traditional back 4, we can't seem to get in behind the opposition, and that's a width issue with the personnel within the squad. I didn't see Ben Davies once take on anyone down the left wing yesterday. There's nothing wrong with that if he's got support from someone who can do so, but there was no one else who could either. That's why we saw Dembele (of all people) having a go in the end. The players were stifled and every push down the flank ended up in the final ball being played backwards, and starting again with ultimately no penetration leading to a proper well worked chance at goal.
Gotta hand it to Chelsea's defence though. To stay resolute for that amount of time and be that disciplined is outstanding.

 

We only managed it because we didn't have Gary "What's my name again?" Cahill ****ing us over.
Guy is a liability, Chelsea (and England for that matter) will be better served if they get shot of him.
I just don't rate the guy all that much, and never have. Far too inconsistent. JT, he aint, thats for damn sure.

 

Creativity and flair aren't the samething. We had Alli who is a flair player, we had Eriksen who's a great creator and mopst of the side is capable of creativity. What we lacked, though, was precision. It's not something we usually lack but we came up short in that department yesterday and with Chelsea suffocating the space in around the box it made it even worse.

We definitely could have done with some pace out there though. Alli's the only one we had with real pace so all you have to do is make sure you close him down and keep a defender a few yards behind to mop up if he knocks it past the first player. Again, outwide as you say would have been more helpful as it would help stretch a narrow defence across the pitch, creating more space in the middle.

Just on something you said earlier about the Batschuaryie(or something like that lol) own goal. It came from pressure building. People always seem to think that controlling the possession in games like that is no help but it always increases the chances of mistakes. There was 2 occasions in the second half where your players booted the ball into another when trying to clear. On another day they can land at one of our player's feet and you can score. I don't get why people never see this. It's a legitimate benefit of the tactic, just as much as counter attacking is a benefit of sitting back. Keep attacking and keep putting the ball into the right areas, it increases the number of mistakes and increases the chance we can benefit from them. It's the same with keeping energy levels up, if you can outrun your opponent they will start to tire. It's not so useful against Chelsea but you see it time and again for us against sides like Burnley, you can simply wear them out and then start beating them. In match reports you always see it listed as "team X were unable to trouble team Y's goal for much of the game but on the hour mark they improved... blah, blah, blah" which totally misunderstands what actually happened.

 

Officer Crabtree

 

It also often leads to corners, as we saw yesterday. Unfortunately, we're no threat from them! Once in a blue moon we'll beat the first defender and Toby will pop up with a header. It was almost as if Chelsea knew we were unlikely to cause any trouble, and were happy to keep conceding them!

 

Don't blame them, it was their best opportunity to give the defenders a rest when they couldn't keep the ball up the other end in a lot of the second half

It's true that we're not the best at set-pieces. I think we have one of the best set piece goal tallies simply because we get so many.

To be fair though, Chelsea are very good at them and particularly when they have so many defenders on the pitch.

 

You can read those figures in different ways. For me it shows we are not giving away many chances and as long as we continue to do that we will do better. If you the opposition coming to Wembley you simply will not be able to rely on scoring 4 from every 5 shots on target. You're not even going to get 5 shots on target. For this reason I suggest there is no "Wembley hoodooo" at all and in fact we've been rather unlucky in that the opposition have scored with a much higher proportion of shots on target than they can reasonably be expected to. That is as likely as some of the other explanations that have been offered about our poor record. All those other explanations are based on the fact we have lost all those games and there is a reason for it, whilst scientific method would suggest that you don't form a conclusion and then go looking for facts that happen to fit it. Also the sample is rather small - you really can't draw a proper conclusion until the end of the season. We could have lost all those games by complete fluke - ok I agree that's not the case, but we haven't been playing that badly (maybe Bayer was bad). I don't think we deserved to lose yesterday and would not have if not for an error. After we equalised, it was more likely that we would have scored the winner I thought. That error does not somehow by mystical means confirm this "hoodoo". So in conclusion it's a "don't panic Mr Mainwaring" situation, and beware psuedo explanations of a "Wembley curse" that doesn't actually exist.

 

I think that I have just about calmed down, what a horribly frustrating match. 2 very good teams went toe to toe again, with very different game plans, but it created quite a spectacle. Chelsea set up to frustrate us and in the main they succeeded. In the end with one moment of brilliance and one piece of poor goalkeeping they won the day, we can argue that we were a little unlucky I thought a draw would have been a decent result and our performance was worth at least that much.

But I am left frustrated because too many of our players were only OK, not enough of them really stepped up to give us a really big performance and that’s disappointing. Wanyama was certainly below par and along with Lloris contributed to their winning goal. How many of our players really played well? I thought Dembele was our best player and thought Poch’s subs were wrong Son was introduced correctly but in my mind Wanyama rather than Dier should have been withdrawn, maybe Erics yellow card was the deciding factor. As for using Sissoko for Davies I like most here cannot see what he brings us whether as a starter or a sub he just constantly fails to deliver and I thought Winks would come on at that point as we needed his passing, which I think would have stood a better chance of creating an opening than Sissokos headless chicken impression and Vincent had no time and cannot be judged on such appearances.

As other have said more pace is definitely required neither Davies or Trippier played badly but they are not as dynamic as other full backs we know! Lets hope that more pace is added before August 31st because packed 8 men behind the ball teams/defences are going to be appearing in over 30 of our remaining 36 away matches!

 

It will happen with him I think. The most important matter is to win and there's no point in being loyal to a player if he isn't banging them in as Harry doesn't in August.

 

I would have preferred Cahill to have played to be honest. He always seems like he is going to give away space or a foul. I can't understand why Conte made him captain. David Luiz would be better as he is always talking to the ref and getting what he can for you lot