The London derbies are a big attraction in the English premier league. Mostly because most of the London clubs are a tough team to face so these games in between them is very exciting most of the time. One such will be the Tottenham vs Chelsea derby. Tottenham comes from the north side of London and Chelsea from the west. This last week the two clubs faced of again. This time at the home of Tottenham, the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.
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Chelsea have a sweet vibe when it comes to playing Tottenham at their home. Beating them in front of their fans is a usual for Chelsea now. This time was also no different. Though Tottenham looked defensively stable under new boss Nuno Espirito Santo, they lost to Crystal Palace 3-0 last week. Which led to many people writing them off. And it was no different.
The home team (Tottenham) lined up in a familiar 4-3-3 against their London rivals
HUGO LLORIS (C), EMERSON ROYAL, ERIC DIER, CHRISTIAN ROMERO, SERGIO REGUILON, PIERE EMILE HOJBJERG, GIOVANI LO CELSO, TANGUY NDOMBELE, DELE ALLI, HEUNG MIN SON, HARRY KANE
While the visitors (Chelsea) stuck to their usual 3-4-3 formation with
ΚΕΡΑ ARRIZABALAGA, ANDREAS CHRISTENSEN, THIAGO SILVA, ANTONIO RUDIGER, CESAR AZPILICUETA (C), MATEO KOVACIC, JORGINHO, MARCOS ALONSO , KAI HAVERTZ, ROMELU LUKAKU, MASON MOUNT
At the start of the game Chelsea looked shaky. Spurs looked to play on the counter. And use their speed against a Chelsea side who used a fairly high line. The team looked out of sorts, Chelsea weren't creating any good chances. Meanwhile Tottenham scared Chelsea a number of times. Coach Nuno Espirito Santo used a good exploitation against this well drilled Chelsea side. This Chelsea team's defensive shape allows them to heavily guard the middle of the pitch. This leaves some room in the wide areas. Usually if there are two players for the opposition in the wide areas there's a good chance that they will be able to get in behind the Chelsea defense. Spurs did this successfully for a number of times. They used Son's and Alli's speed go to get in behind and run at goal. Though Tottenham couldn't make a breakthrough even after getting many good chances as Chelsea defenders somehow caught up to their wingers and in other cases Kepa made good interventions. Kepa's form is on the up. He is playing good in the chances he's getting and slowly regaining confidence. The game against Tottenham was big step for him. He looked confident and made himself more commanding than usual in that game. Along with some good saves he did several ball claims inside the box. Which eventually limited Tottenham's chances to score a goal past him. While on the other end the Chelsea half forwards or sometimes winger, in this case Mason Mount and Kai Havertz, were below par. They couldn't make good chances not either for themselves nor for Lukaku. The first half finished in a 0-0 score.
In the half time team talk Tuchel made some changes to the tactics. And made a substitution. Mount was underperforming so Tuchel took him off and brought on N'golo Kante. This turned the formation into a 3-5-2. And essentially this stopped Tottenham's progression through the wider areas of the pitch. This changed the game completely. As Tottenham couldn't progress up the pitch this gave Chelsea more control of the game, especially in the midfield. And then it was Thiago Silva of all people who scored from a thumping header from a corner. Lloris couldn't save it and Chelsea took a 1-0 lead at about an hour past in the game. This was a setback for Tottenham. And later on Kante took a shot from outside the box which actually took a deflection and hit the bar and then went in. Lloris could only watch as he could've realistically done nothing. 2-0 to Chelsea. But he made some very good saves in that game. Including another corner which was again met by Thiago Silva but this time Lloris was standing right in the path of the ball so he could barely save it. Then Tuchel took off Kai Havertz and brought on Timo Werner. Kai was also a bit lack lustered. He couldn't provide much. But as soon as Timo came on the whole dynamic of Chelsea's attack changed. Werner's agility and his good positioning sense gave him two fairly good chances to score but he couldn't. But still he used his agility to drag out defenders and make space for others to move in. In the end in the 2nd half stoppage time Werner delivered a square pass into the box which was met by Rudiger and he tucked it home. A Werner assist to wrap up the game in a 3-0 win.
From my perspective, Werner-Lukaku combination looks very dangerous. This can be the key to Tuchel's system scoring freely and defending like a wall. Tuchel must play this pair more.