Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Chelsea: 3 reasons why Spurs beat Chelsea

Most observers went into today’s London derby between Tottenham and Chelsea expecting a tight game; the two title hopefuls seemed closely matched coming out of the international break and on paper, there appeared to be a ton of tricky battles for both teams to overcome.

In the end though, the result was a largely one-sided drubbing in favour of Spurs. Mauricio Pochettino’s side simply overwhelmed the Blues at Wembley, winning by 3 goals to 1, although realistically they could’ve scored far more in a rampant first half.

Early goals from Dele Alli and Harry Kane were added to by Heung-Min Son in the second half, and Chelsea could barely muster an answer until Olivier Giroud’s powerful header with 5 minutes remaining in the game.

Here are 3 reasons why Tottenham defeated Chelsea.

#1 Tottenham’s fast start caught Chelsea off guard

Tottenham's midfielders - including Eric Dier - harassed Chelsea from the off today, forcing them to make errors

A lot was written about how Everton were able to steal a point from Chelsea in the final round of Premier League fixtures before the international break, largely stemming around the way that Marco Silva used his midfielders – namely Gylfi Sigurdsson and Idrissa Gueye – to prevent Jorginho from playing his usual metronomic role, thus cutting off Chelsea’s supply lines.

If Silva’s tactic was enough to secure a draw, though, Mauricio Pochettino took that tactic a step further today. Not only did Tottenham prevent Jorginho from taking control of the game early on, they simply prevented Chelsea from doing much at all in the opening minutes. Every time a Chelsea player received the ball they seemed to be crowded and pressed by Tottenham’s men, and it looked as if Maurizio Sarri’s squad simply weren’t prepared for this early onslaught.

Eric Dier and Moussa Sissoko in particular consistently harassed Chelsea’s trio of midfielders – N’Golo Kante, Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic – to the point that not only were they unable to use the ball, but they left their defence adrift too, allowing Spurs to open the Blues up time after time. By time Kane scored his goal in the 16th minute, the game felt like it was largely over as a contest, such was Tottenham’s dominance. This was the performance Spurs fans have waited all season for.

#2 Chelsea’s defence looked shaky throughout the game

Chelsea's defence looked extremely shaky under the pressure that Tottenham put on them

Eyebrows were raised in the summer when Chelsea spent a monstrous £71m to bring in goalkeeper Kepa from Athletic Bilbao, but had it not been for the Spanish stopper, the Blues probably would’ve leaked an embarrassing amount of goals at Wembley today. Chelsea’s four-man defence – Cesar Azpilicueta, Antonio Rudiger, David Luiz and Marcos Alonso – simply didn’t turn up.

All three of Tottenham’s goals were fantastic from an attacking point of view, but it must be said that all three were also caused partially by slack defending. Dele Alli’s header came from some shoddy marking at a set-piece – allowing the England international to rush through and flick home his 6th goal against Chelsea in his last 5 games against them.

Rudiger then completely failed to close Harry Kane down, allowing him to fire in from long range while David Luiz inexplicably turned away from the shot, and finally Heung-Min Son simply ran riot down Chelsea’s right hand side, outpacing Jorginho with ease before slipping past Luiz to score Tottenham’s third. In general, the amount of space Son continually found behind the Blues’ defence must give Maurizio Sarri some food for thought.

The stats should tell their own story – just 40% of possession for Tottenham, but a total of 18 shots on goal with 9 on target. Had Tottenham displayed some better finishing – and had the referee awarded a penalty for a late questionable challenge on Erik Lamela – this could’ve been a whitewash, and Chelsea’s defence would’ve been to blame.

#3 Tottenham benefited from a refereeing call early on

Eden Hazard might've won a penalty in the first half for this clumsy challenge by Juan Foyth

While nobody could argue that Tottenham were by far the better team in today’s game – particularly in the first half – it’s hard to disagree with any Chelsea fans who suggest their side might’ve been a little hard done by. With Tottenham 1-0 up, Chelsea finally launched an attack and on a different day, they could’ve had a penalty.

Eden Hazard broke into the Spurs box and was tackled clumsily by Argentine defender Juan Foyth, but referee Martin Atkinson decided a foul had not been committed and allowed play to continue with Tottenham almost breaking away. On a first view, it appeared to be a close call to make – it did appear that Foyth had muscled into Hazard’s back, but perhaps the Belgian had gone down a little too easily.

On a second viewing from an alternate angle though, it appeared that not only had Foyth crashed into the back of Hazard, but he’d also made contact with the Chelsea man’s knee, causing him to hit the deck. In fact, it was eerily similar to the fouls made by Foyth in Spurs’ game with Wolves a few weeks ago – fouls that saw Wolves awarded two penalties.

Chelsea fans will be left rueing Atkinson’s decision, but nobody ever claimed that referees were perfect. And without VAR to back them up in this season, incidents like this will continue to happen. Chelsea were well beaten by a better team today, but it’s hard not to wonder what could’ve happened had they been rightfully awarded a spot-kick at 1-0 down.