off their back.
One of the most meaningless unbeaten streaks in the Premier League comes to an end in a second half clueless, whimper at Chelsea.
A classic case of what could have been for Spurs as they went down 2-1 to Chelsea.
What could that unbeaten run have been if they’d turned up for most of the games the way they did in the first half, what could it have been if they’d turned up in the second half.
Bar the Citeh game so far this season – Stoke doesn’t really count, everyone was doing them at the time – Spurs haven’t turned up. They did so for the first, well 44 minutes against Chelsea.
Now if they’d played like those 44 minutes in the previous games in that unbeaten run, how many of those draws would have been wins?
Now if they’d played like those 44 minutes that for the final 46 minutes of this game, it might not have been a loss.
The press was back. Don’t know where it had been, but it was good to see it’s return. It reduced Chelsea to pass backs and humps forward. And who was this new player that Pochettino had found? Blond lad, apparently Danish, called Christian.
He looks quite decent, took his goal really well. Disappeared in the second half mind.
It was a good goal from Eriksen, showing my age here, I actually am old enough to remember the last time Eriksen scored for Spurs. Ah, the good old days. Hell something nearly came from one of his free-kicks, Kane needlessly offside, I mean when was the last time that happened.
But while they had most of the ball and were the only side going forward, Courtois had very little to do in the host goal.
And of course come the 45th minute all that good work without finishing it off came back to bite them on the arse. With some really sloppy, naive play thrown in.
Seconds running down and you have a free-kick in their half. Don’t just cough up the ball with ease and give them time for a last attack. Slowly get everyone forward, line them all up, run the clock down. Oh and if Pedro has the ball on the edge of the box, don’t show him inside, you know maybe close him down and don’t open up an inviting path to goal.
So what could have been a really good half, in a second wasn’t. That spoiled all the good work.
Spoiled even more just over five minute into the second half.
Wimmer getting all the blame from what I saw, well along with Poch for playing him at left-back. Well someone had to fit in there with Rose’s suspension. Put Vertonghen in there and you weaken the centre and the left, put Wimmer there and it’s just the flank.
But what did Wimmer do wrong? He was up the park and bust a gut to get back and get onto Pedro, the dangerous player in the middle of the goal. Would Rose have done it any different? Well, he certainly likes being narrow and plenty of times I’ve seen him lollygag back.
Maybe if the rest hadn’t charged over to the ball, or some of those in midfield had tracked Moses, you know done a bit of their defensive duties.
The second half was the complete reversal of the first with Chelsea having all the play and Spurs not being at the races at all. And while Conte looked at his bench and had Oscar and Willian, Pochettino turned to Winks and Nkoudou. The latter went on one cracking run but wasted it going for a stupid shot from a tight angle. Other than that he did what the rest did/do, looked inside to the crowded middle.
With Walker providing no width on the right, they just didn’t get behind Chelsea and while there was chances to equalise they had the better ones to finish the game off completely.
Now we can put that unbeaten tag to bed and look at the fact that it’s one and a half decent games so far this season and that there’s something really wrong.
Pochettino has turned on Sissoko, stating that in training he’s not what they expected. What did they expect, I doubt he’s surprising any Newcastle fans that witnessed him not turning up week in week out last season, except against Spurs when the telly was there.
Never, ever, buy a player on the back of a decent performance in a summer tournament, when they’ve done sod all for the rest of the season. Especially don’t spunk a huge amount of cash on them.