Match Threads Chelsea Vs Spurs

[THE SPURSBOY]

WN's? What's that?

sorry WB's wing backs

 

[djhotspur]

Interesting, pundits all raving about Chelsea’s 4 man box press. It was incredibly effective

 

[djhotspur]

Kane (or Kulusevski) should have been told to drop deeper and get closer to Jorginho. He had no pressure on him whatsoever in the first half and dictated play.
We're at our best defensively when we drop into a 5-4-1 and then break from there but yesterday it seemed Son and Kulusevski didn't have the legs to do that. Hopefully it's just a case of them building up fitness but they both looked leggy.

Yeah we have to adapt. Kulu could move to the 10 role to help out in midfield. No point continuing to do the things that aren’t working

 

[Duke of Northumberland]

Completely understand why Conte has trusted players who he's had longer to work with but the integration of some of the new players needs to start now. I don't know who out of PEH and Bentancur is dropped as I like them both, but Bissouma has to start for me. Will take him a bit of time to acclimatise to Conte's methods but the guy oozes class and will be huge for us. Also think Perisic needs to start next game. Sess is a work in progress and will be decent against poorer opposition, but Perisic is clearly still a fantastic player and we need him on the pitch. The delivery on those final two corners were fantastic and we have a huge team now so need to take advantage of it.

Will be interested to see if Lenglet starts when he comes back from injury, I think with his ability on the ball, he will be a 1st team regular and an astute signing but just depends how long his injury keeps him out (seems he may even be back next week).

Also think Richarlison was brilliant when he came on yesterday. Brought a whole new energy and I genuinely feel he's a fantastic addition.

Overall, it was a tough watch. We were very poor and Chelsea 100% deserved the 3pts, so to come away with 1pt is massive.

I'll be gobsmacked if we see the same Starting XI next Saturday.

It felt like the subs should have come earlier but I think Conte was giving the team time to try and find it’s own solutions. Still in development mode. Be interesting to see what he does against Wolves.

 

[KirstyG]

Some of the posts in here at half time were just absolutely shocking. Tuchel set up his team brilliantly to nullify us. Our game plan is obvious and Tuchel (unlike Pep and Klopp) is willing to adapt his game plan to shut us down. The good news is that few teams have the ability to set up like Chelsea did today. Reece James was the best player on the pitch by a mile and he was able to both shut down Son and overload Sess. Jorginho and Kante were incredible for the first 60 mins and we couldn't get close to them with our tactical set up. Thiago Silva and Koulibaly were both so good at coming through the back of Kane and Deki without getting called for it. Despite how well Chelsea played and Tuchel's spot on tactics, the only goal we gave up before the tactical switch was an absolute screamer from a CB on a corner. 9/10 times Koulibaly misses that shot. We were too sloppy when we had the chance to break, but frankly Chelsea's press was well-executed and sufficating. There was just no margin for error and we kept hitting slightly errant balls or taking too long.

The better news is that Conte was willing to change things up AND we had depth on the bench to make those changes. Once Richie came on the game opened up for both sides. Mendy ended up making as many good saves as Lloris did. We probably got lucky with the no-call on the Bentancur tackle (though I think they got lucky with the no call against Deki on their goal), and Romero could have cost us with the stupid hair tug (though I thoroughly stand by the assertion that hair that long is asking to be pulled ...).

So far this season we have played two teams that had our number tactically last year. Hasenhuttl and Tuchel both out thought Conte last year. Chelsea beat us 4 times and we got a draw and a loss against Soton. We're 4 points better off than last year already. Sure the first half was frustrating, but I personally see real progress from last year. We had a real plan B today - in the recent past we've barely had a plan A. Too many folks on here yell too much about Conte not starting our fancy new toys and trying to blame certain scapegoats for a bad tactical set up.

Very sensible post.
Small add - Kante going off helped too

 

[Matrix]

Quite impressive being second best most of the match but yet winning the second half 2-1.

 

[olliec]

possession doesn't win games of course not but we had no control of the game they dominated us - the German lad should have scored we made quite a few last ditch blocks Sterling probably should have done better - we had a couple of chances on the break and Kane would score that 9 times out of ten but our midfield wasn't in the game neither were our wide men and for a lot of the game we couldn't get out.

If you compare that to the Liverpool game where we always had an element of being in control of the game despite their possession it wasn't like that yesterday we were fortunate you take it but they controlled the game and gave us a bit of a battering in my view

Yes they had control of the midfield, but we are a counter attacking team. I admit we didn’t play great, but we wasn’t battered. They just had a lot more of the ball. A battering is when our Keeper is man of the match, Hugo had hardly anything to do. If it wasn’t for our bad zonal marking they wouldn’t of even scored that corner. Do we deserve a draw? No, but did we get battered. I don’t think so.

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

Completely understand why Conte has trusted players who he's had longer to work with but the integration of some of the new players needs to start now. I don't know who out of PEH and Bentancur is dropped as I like them both, but Bissouma has to start for me. Will take him a bit of time to acclimatise to Conte's methods but the guy oozes class and will be huge for us. Also think Perisic needs to start next game. Sess is a work in progress and will be decent against poorer opposition, but Perisic is clearly still a fantastic player and we need him on the pitch. The delivery on those final two corners were fantastic and we have a huge team now so need to take advantage of it.

Will be interested to see if Lenglet starts when he comes back from injury, I think with his ability on the ball, he will be a 1st team regular and an astute signing but just depends how long his injury keeps him out (seems he may even be back next week).

Also think Richarlison was brilliant when he came on yesterday. Brought a whole new energy and I genuinely feel he's a fantastic addition.

Overall, it was a tough watch. We were very poor and Chelsea 100% deserved the 3pts, so to come away with 1pt is massive.

I'll be gobsmacked if we see the same Starting XI next Saturday.

Even if we did, though, it'd surely get a better performance and result? Chelsea are not a bad team!

 

[arthurgrimsdell]

Tuchel’s words about the ref must bring about further punishment surely? He basically accused him of doing everything he could to make sure they didn’t win and questioned his integrity. They usually don’t look well on those kind of comments and he should get a ban or fine.

His comments in a pre-match press conference don't read well either. He was asked about Conte's comments that Chelsea last season were a lot better than Tottenham but that Tottenham had got better since. He said "I don't believe a word Antonio Conte says".

 

[Timberwolf]

Yes they had control of the midfield, but they we are a counter attacking team. I admit we didn’t play great, but we wasn’t battered. They just had a lot more of the ball. A bartering is when our Keeper is man of the match, Hugo had hardly anything to do. If it wasn’t for our bad zonal marking they wouldn’t of even scored that corner. Do we deserve a draw? No, but did we get battered. I don’t think so.

Yeah I know what you mean, but it felt like a battering as we were kept at arms length for most of the game as their system made us so ineffective on the ball.

The good thing about a Conte team is that, even in games like yesterday where we're notably second best, we're very well drilled and tight defensively. As you say, despite their domination of the ball, they only actually created about 3 clear cut chances all game and one of their goals was a bit of a wonder strike from a corner. We're set up to make it extremely hard for opposition teams to score, even when we're playing shit, which is a great quality to have as a team.

 

[faymantaray]

It was practically the last kick of the match though.

Haha exactly! That’s why we could have given the impression of hunger without risking conceding ourselves.

 

[cjbyid]

I understand that everyone was ecstatic with what seemed like an impossible point under the circumstances but I do wish we would have dug the ball out and tried to at least make it look like we were hungry for the win. The celebrations at full time after a 2-2 draw, as impressive as it was given the performance, seemed excessive to me.

My fear was those fuckers getting to kick off and go up the other end and scoring. Would've been so typical. Deep down I was happy we wasted some time

 

[faymantaray]

My fear was those fuckers getting to kick off and go up the other end and scoring. Would've been so typical. Deep down I was happy we wasted some time

Also @Nayim60yards
You’re both probably right but celebrating draws against rivals (also like we used to against Arsenal back in the day) has always felt a bit off for me.
I’m talking more about the scenes at full time maybe.

 

[Duke of Northumberland]

Hard to leave a player like Son out. However, if Son has games like today, Richarlison will be on.

I don't even think it's Son's fault, he's just simply much more effective when he has space and can run at teams. When he's denied that, he offers very little, whereas Richarlison is a warrior and you need players like him to play through pressure.

I can also see Spence eventually in at RWB.

If not for Reece James’ tactical foul he would have had a run on goal with two in support- it might have been very different…

 

[Zippy1980]

Photo taken at Spurs lodge this morning

 

[Phil_2.0]

This game showed the limitations of Dier and Davies.

I feel sympathy for Davies because when we went to 442 Son just abandoned him and he was 2v1 all the time.

Dier not good enough bringing the ball out and Davies too. We had a lot of safe possession but they needed to step into midfield and drive us forward.

We really need just one special defender. We should try to kidnap Bastoni

 

[Styopa]

I understand that everyone was ecstatic with what seemed like an impossible point under the circumstances but I do wish we would have dug the ball out and tried to at least make it look like we were hungry for the win. The celebrations at full time after a 2-2 draw, as impressive as it was given the performance, seemed excessive to me.

I find this a very naive view. Chelsea lost three times at home last season and at least two of those defeats (Arsenal and Brentford) were relative anomalies during a period where their form tanked. The other defeat was a 1-0 win to Man C. Liverpool drew there 2-2. Even the very best teams in the league will normally have a task on their hands away to Chelsea, they are a good team and playing them at their ground is not straightforward. They also always seem to be bang up for playing us. A point there is a very good result not least because it stops them pulling three points ahead of us. And the point was a reward for us hanging in there and playing to the final whistle even if it wasn’t a great performance.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

It was practically the last kick of the match though.

So was Bergwijn’s equaliser against Leicester…but i don’t agree that we should have been rushing back to try and get the win yesterday. Completely different type of game. You take the draw.

 

[C0YS]

normally yes but stifling the game is exactly what we needed to do yesterday the midfield was overrun we had no outlets out wide we had to stop them from playing and create a foothold

But then what's our threat? We were losing we didn't need to stifle the game we needed to open it up

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Does the SC hive consider a corner to be a set piece?

Just wondering because every time we don't score from one people start crying. Then, when we do............