It was a typically incident-filled meeting between these sworn enemies but, really, there was only one place to start. Ange Postecoglou, the remorselessly under-fire Tottenham manager, had been barracked by his own supporters when he replaced Lucas Bergvall with Pape Sarr in the 64th minute. Like every other Spurs player, Bergvall had struggled to impose himself but the fans do like him.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” they informed Postecoglou. So just imagine how the fiercely proud Australian must have felt shortly afterwards when Sarr won the ball off Moisés Caicedo and unloaded a low shot from distance, which the Chelsea goalkeeper, Robert Sánchez, inexplicably allowed to beat him.
Well, we would not need to imagine because Postecoglou showed us. In full view of the press box behind him, he turned to face the Spurs fans, who were lost in celebration, and cupped his ear in their direction before standing and staring at them.
In the moment it was impossible to believe this was anything other than hostility from Postecoglou boiling over. There have been flashpoints before between him and the supporters. Remember the scenes after the defeat at Bournemouth in December? Postecoglou’s attempt to backtrack in his post-match interviews, claiming he merely wanted to revel in the celebrations, to hear the cheers, was bizarre to say the least. The ear-cup is not open to interpretation.
There would be a twist when the VAR, Jarred Gillett, went over the Sarr challenge on Caicedo and he did not need to look too long to see the foul, although he still took about six minutes. Sarr had kicked Caicedo’s knee. The goal was disallowed. Sarr was booked. Postecoglou raged inside.
Chelsea had been in complete control up until the Bergvall/Sarr change, leading through Enzo Fernández’s header, the only wonder being how they were not further ahead. Guglielmo Vicario made a sensational save to deny Jadon Sancho. The outstanding Caicedo saw a goal chalked off by the VAR. Spurs had failed to do the very basics, pretty much all of them, beginning with carrying some sort of fight.
The weird thing was that as passions raged and the game broke up, Spurs fashioned something of a revival. They got onto the front foot and it was possible to feel a few nerves among the Chelsea support. Enzo Maresca’s team would be indebted to Sánchez for a fine save from Son Heung-min just before the board went up to show 12 additional minutes.
It was difficult in the extreme though to make the case for Spurs. The rally could not obscure the fault-lines and this was a game for which Postecoglou had all of his main players available – apart from the injured Dejan Kulusevski. For the manager, it was four of the most unwanted kind, a fourth defeat out of four against Chelsea across two seasons. And, to extend the poker analogy, it was easy to wonder whether we were looking at a busted flush.
When it was all over, Postecoglou deliberately avoided following his players over to the end that housed the travelling fans. There was no applause from him towards them. In the build-up to the game Postecoglou had admitted there was “maybe a large portion of Tottenham fans who have lost a bit of faith and belief in what we’re doing.” There was little to redress the balance.
Maresca’s sights are on a Champions League finish. Beforehand he had said that six more wins would suffice. This was No 1, something to fire momentum for the challenges ahead. Postecoglou, meanwhile, can see the season and probably his future resting on the Europa League, in which his team face Eintracht Frankfurt in the quarter-finals. This was a tune-up that fell flat.
Maresca had restored Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson to the starting line-up and the latter was a handful. He almost got in with less than a minute gone, bursting between Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven to prod goalwards. Vicario half-blocked and when Van de Ven’s panicked clearance hit Jackson, the ball ricocheted against a post and away.
Chelsea were in the mood from the outset, pushing high, dominating the duels. Spurs struggled to get out. Postecoglou felt the frustration bubble. He delivered a rollicking to Bergvall in the 20th minute after the midfielder failed to track a run into the area by Palmer, who crossed low. Destiny Udogie made a saving challenge on Fernández in front of goal.
Chelsea were able to find spaces in between the lines, to work their passing patterns whereas Spurs were tentative on the ball, gripped by anxiety. Time and again they misplaced passes. Son fired in a low shot from a tight angle, which Sánchez shovelled away but that was it from them as an attacking force in the first half.
It was frustrating for Chelsea that they could not take a lead into the interval. Malo Gusto had rifled into the side-netting on eight minutes and there was the staggeringly good Vicario reflex save from Sancho’s close-range blast in stoppage-time.
Chelsea continued to dominate after the restart, Palmer working Vicario and then crossing for Fernández to head home. Spurs’s defensive structure had broken down. Fernández was unmarked. Spurs caught a break when Caicedo fizzed home a volley after the visitors had half-cleared a set piece only for the VAR to rule that Levi Colwill was offside in the middle. After Van de Ven had gone close at the other end, the next VAR intervention would shape the story.
