Written by Mark O’Donnell at The Sports Quotient
Tottenham are better than Chelsea. This should appear obvious from the league table, as Spurs have floated around fifth all season while Chelsea are stuck in the doldrums of the lower-to-mid-table. But Chelsea have the big name players, recent titles, Jose Mourinho and the Champions League, and all of that is pretty hard to ignore. Regardless, Tottenham’s squad is better, and it is important to state and re-state that, because for once in a big match, they played like they were the favorite against a traditionally bigger club. Consequentially, that meant Chelsea played as the away underdog, and they just about killed the entire match because of it.
Cesc Fabregas has long been seen as one of the top creative midfielders in the world, and last year he nearly set the record for assists in a Premier League season. He had some success in this match with switches to put Oscar and Willian into space, but he was the main entertainment in an otherwise boring match for an entirely different reason.
Let’s use that impotence as a segue to talk about Chelsea’s attack. It would be too harsh to call it uninspired, as there were instances of Oscar and Eden Hazard receiving the ball in time and space, but there were two main problems sitting between Chelsea and a goal. The first is that Tottenham defended high, tight, and smart. Their press continually forced the ball back to goalkeeper, Asmir Begovic, and limited him to a 36% pass success rate, preventing Chelsea from maintaining possession and playing out from the back. Even when the Blues managed to find space on a cross-field ball, look how well Tottenham get numbers back and cut off the potential forward options:
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