The Desolation of Spurs!

There are two teams on this planet that I simply will not accept losing to: Liverpool and Spurs.

Obviously, it is inevitable that you are going to lose games of football during a season. It’s a fact of life. I don’t even mind losing games of football…but not to these two. Ever. So what an incredible feeling it is to be sitting here and writing knowing we’ve avoided Sp*rs defeating us at home for what will now be 25 years.

Spurs must be sick of Stamford Bridge, perhaps to the point where they have become so sick of being beaten by us on our ground, they’ve now decided it would be perhaps easier for them to beat themselves and save the frustration. Today’s showing from our North London rivals would suggest, and to quote Tim Sherwood they “capitulated” once again at the hands of Chelsea.

However, I’m not going to waste my time (and yours) mocking Tottenham as to how hysterically abysmal they were (I lie, I will), I’d much rather discuss where it went right for us.

In terms of the team that was put out, baring the unfortunate ill-timed injury to Torres, the team was probably the one I would have picked. Before the game, on social media, I could see a few questioning the line up with the absence of Oscar and Willian. The International break was harsh on our Samba stars, having arrived back from South Africa on Thursday afternoon. It was right to rest the Brazilians…except Ramires, who doesn’t know what fatigue means.

The first half was an interesting one. For the first few minutes, as I mentioned last week in my blog, we did exactly as I expected. We picked the ball up in between the lines and slipped through balls behind the back four. But for an incorrect linesman’s call, Lloris could have seen red and Chelsea awarded a penalty, whilst Hazard couldn’t quite wrap his foot around the ball after squeezing past Lloris minutes later.

After that, the remainder of the first half didn’t quite go to plan. Now, I’d like to put a stop to this malarkey that Tim Sherwood had it right tactically. Absolute rubbish.
We were guilty of under hitting passes between the lines into the feet of our attackers too often. This allowed the Spurs midfield to press and nick the ball in front and push on forward. With Ramires being asked to play wide in the first half, we didn’t have that same ability. Matic was anchoring more and Frank doesn’t quite have the pace or legs to nip ahead of others.

The only thing Spurs did well in that first half was snuff out mistakes, which in all honesty, you would hope any professional team would be capable of. They never threatened, nor really looked equipped to either. Judging how high Spurs back line was, it would of taken one firm pass into the likes of Schurrle or Hazard and they just have to hit a weighted pass into 35 yards of space for Eto’o.

Tim Sherwood tactically got it right? Give over.

After about 30 minutes, I felt more and more that this game would be ideal for Oscar (as my twitter timeline would show). We needed someone that could drag players away to create space and then hit a firm pass into those areas.

The second half, Oscar replaced Lampard. Frank wasn’t having a bad game but he was on a booking and taking into account that no midfielder was putting his foot on the ball, it would have been a risk. We’ve all seen Frank long enough; he just isn’t going to win in a game now, where speed is the imperative. This substitution ultimately changed the game.

I mentioned last week in my blog that in the second half against Fulham, Oscar played a very important role off the ball. He did this by dropping that bit deeper in order to lure out Parker/Sidwell, which as a direct result gave Hazard and Schurrle the room to come in off the flanks into open space to use their strengths; running at players. We had similar results this week too but with a big impact on the ball as well as off it.

The first thing that happened was we took a hold of the midfield. We got Ramires back into the middle and that gave Matic the authority to roam and hunt the ball (and vice-versa) because they both know they’ve got the legs to cover each other. The part Oscar played then, was to sit deeper in front of the two holders so when we gained possession, he could collect it and hit it early into the other forwards.

In the second half, we played noticeably at a greater speed and control because we had a grip on the midfield and pushed the ball out accordingly.

The first goal was a build up of the pressure we had been putting on for the previous 10 minutes. We were winning the ball in Tottenham’s half and delivering probing passes behind Dawson. When it didn’t come off, we quickly pressed to win it further up…in the first goals instance, most of it was done for us!

Watch the first goal again. The ball comes across to Vertonghen and he looks to his right to pass it back inside, where Oscar was starting to move. He then looks up the line and see’s nothing up in front of him. By this point, Schurrle is bearing down on him. He slips; panics and Eto’o clinically does the rest; Excellent high pressing.

The second goal all starts from winning the ball back and gaining control again and I have to say, which nobody has given him credit for, John Terry delivers one of the best first time balls up the line to Hazard you will ever see. That is the beauty of playing a team with a high line, you can play passes in behind from anywhere on the pitch. As long as you can weight it correctly, there is always going to be space to run in.

As for the penalty decision itself…put it this way, if that was given against us, I would feel very hard done by. Never a red card either. From what I’ve read, quite a number of football fans feel Eto’o “conned” the ref. That for me is harsh but he was cute with his movement. He realized early the ball was behind him and pulled ahead of Kaboul so any contact would look like a challenge from behind. There was contact but minimal at that.

After that 2-0 cushion, never in doubt was it?

You could see the players start to enjoy the football. Every attack was a ball in behind Dawson and we really should have added  to the scoreboard earlier. No wonder Dawson came off with a hamstring strain.

The third goal epitomized the point I made about Oscar dictating the tempo of the game. We won the ball back and Oscar collects the ball to knock it back to Hazard. At this point, the game had slowed down and we could do whatever we wanted. Oscar decides to take it up a gear with a run down the line, which again is made easier when all Hazard has to do is hit a weighted pass in a straight line to a 50 yard space. How badly Spurs played the high line was shocking. How Sherwood is surprised that against decent teams they’ve had 7 bells knocked out of them is beyond me when they allow teams to play in front of them with acres to run into behind them.

I hope Mourinho and Chelsea get the credit we deserve from this result. It’s very easy to look at the penalty/red card and believe it was a game changer, when in reality it was just the final nail in the coffin. Besides, I don’t hear anyone else discussing the 7 bookable offences Sandro had (yet only got one yellow card) or the cynical fouls of Bentelab in the first half, in which a more officious referee would have sent him off. I don’t want to see players sent off, but on a balance of decisions, the Spurs red card probably evened itself out in the end.

As for Spurs, well I’m sure we’ve all seen poor Tim’s interview now. He does have a point; many of those Tottenham players were diabolical. Having said that, on Friday he said they didn’t expect to win anyway so there wasn’t any pressure on them (and they clearly showed they weren’t bothered).

As mentioned in last weeks blog, Tottenham were always going to be undone by their own tactical naivety…it was probably just glossed over (the high line being an example) by some shocking individual errors. Even the starting eleven they fielded…Lennon played behind Adebayor, which lasted all of 25 minutes when he was dragged wide again. Playing Walker ahead of Naughton was a ploy to double up on Hazard but failed because the former didn’t bother to follow him. On the pitch and within the dugout, that Spurs performance was a car crash waiting to happen.

The important thing for us now is to remain calm. We’ve done all we can do and applied as much pressure on the others as physically possible.
We are now in that glorious position knowing that if any one of them drops a single point, we would have already capitalized without touching a ball. With those teams having to play each other too, theoretically it’s likely they may cancel each other out.

Jose may insist we’re not favorites to win the title and we’re not ready to win it… but somewhere, especially after the desolation of Spurs, in the back of the mind of that poker face of his there will without a doubt be a thought that we’re going to see it through.

It’s not over until the fat lady sings…but Chelsea are certainly warming up the vocal cords.

UTC

By Liam Hawkes
(@LiamHawkes2)