Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Chelsea: Tactical analysis of a game of two halves

Most of Chelsea’ spark in the second half was provided by an inspired Torres upfront, whose second half performance might be one of his best in a Blue shirt.

Torres’s style alongside a fluid Chelsea midfield sees him run the channels between the centre backs and fullbacks on most occasions. The Spaniard followed this pattern in the first half, and contrastingly, his compatriot Soldado on the other end operated in between the Chelsea CBs, which allowed Eriksen to pick out better through balls.

But with Oscar pushing to a wide left position, Hazard a much less energetic presence in the second half and with Mata operating at the halfway line to open up spaces on the flanks, Torres was now left with the entire last quarter of the pitch to dribble and run at the Spurs defence.

He successfully did so on 2-3 occasions against Dawson and Vertonghen, and a stupid sending off by the referee resulted in an inspired performance ending prematurely.

Oscar’s presence on the left saw Townsend getting much lesser time and space to run at Cole. This led to AVB bringing on Nacer Chadli on that flank, whose towering physique would have been perfectly suited to ward off Oscar.

Apart from the Belgian Chadli’s arrival on the left, Oscar found himself in good crossing positions on a couple of times when even cutting in would have been a good option.

But Oscar’s defensive stint left him unable to take advantage of these. So Mourinho brought in Andre Schurrle on the left, who is much more accomplished than Oscar in cutting inside from the left.

Despite starting on the right, Juan Mata settled into a No.10 role after Hazard’s departure, and in typical fashion, the Spaniard was able to pick out perfect through balls upfront.

Apart from his set piece where Terry scored, another chance went begging when Schurrle’s attempt was well saved by Lloris. In fact, Tottenham’s keeper Lloris has been really impressive in the early part of this season.

His tactic of coming a long way off his line to pick up through balls behind the defence, and his superb dealing of set-pieces against a physical team like Chelsea, has seen Spurs being the 2nd most miserly team in Europe.

All in all, it was a game of 2 halves and 2 major tactics by the managers. AVB’s version of playing Paulinho in an attacking role against Mikel almost paid off major dividends, but his intent on playing Sigurdsson as a deep lying winger who rushes into the box, is now become a successfully established one for Spurs.

Mourinho on the other hand needs to be given credit to the way he controlled the energetic Spurs in the 2nd half. AVB himself pointed out Jose’s closing down tactic as the reason why the likes of Eriksen and Townsend couldn’t prosper in the second half.

Mata’s resurgence seems to be temporary however, as regardless of his creative display, the way the Spaniard allowed Dembele to ghost past him so many times in the second half, will definitely leave Jose demanding much more from Juan.