Wembley.
This was the glorious chance for Spurs to get all those monkeys off their back, in beating Chelsea at their new home, they should have done so but in reality failed miserably.
Yes you can have all the ball, all the corners, win the passing but what does it matter if you do sod all with it.
As someone pointed out on Twitter during yesterday’s game, Leicester won the title without the ball. They just sucked up pressure and hit the opposition n the break. After the first few minutes of Chelsea domination, that’s what the visitors did for nearly the rest of the game, especially after they went one up.
Along with it being Leicester-ish, with a goal from a set piece and then a flat back ten it was Pulisesque.
Spurs had all the ball, but who actually did anything with it?
There was the odd thing, Dele’s turn and run that played Kane in for his shot off the post. While Eriksen ran the show the previous game here there was no telling pass. Dembele ran through the Chelsea midfield but one run into the box wasn’t enough.
Dier and Wanyama are not there for their creativity and with Chelsea offering very little going forward was both necessary. Though of course Pochettino didn’t know that was how things would panned out.
For all the abuse Dier is getting over his performance it wasn’t until he departed that Chelsea got out of their half, after that opening spell. As for the tackle on Luiz and Moses, did he actually touch ’em. Luiz certainly trying to get a red card.
The other ones getting the blame were the fullbacks. And rightly so, for their performance yes but not for who they aren’t. Would Walker have made any difference? No, neither the original or the Peters version.
It’s funny, Trippier is getting slated for a performance that the same people were giving Walker-Peters the man of the match for a week previously. Neither of them got to the byline enough, most of the time playing the easy, safe, inside, backwards pass, with acres of space to attack.
Kyle Walker-Peters didn’t do it last week, Trippier didn’t this and Walker didn’t do it the way so many are dewy eyed reminiscing about. Davies didn’t do it either on the other side, even though he’s been more at it recently. Maybe Rose was missed on that side.
But why did neither of them get to the byline? It was obvious so why did everything come through the middle?
Hugo getting some blame as well. Well, he could nothing for the first goal. Though if he’d stood still for the second and not tried to save it the ball probably would have hit his foot. So we get the Hugo haters pointing out howlers. Well, maybe the great saves and the number of times he has saved the club blind you and you expect it all the time. Yes he makes errors, all keepers do, just those errors get highlighted because of the difference between great saves and howlers. To say he’s worse than the clown in Liverpool’s goal is beyond belief.
Hell it shouldn’t have even got that far, really slack play by Wanyama, who didn’t look that fit, to cough up easy possession – no the media, Luiz did not win the ball, he was gifted it.
So the schneid is still on, Spurs and Wembley, Kane and August. If neither get off it next week against Burnley then it’s gonna get really tiresome. Poch says it shouldn’t matter and it shouldn’t, I mean it’s not like they didn’t dominate the game and have chances.
They always go on about the different dimensions, wider and longer, at Wembley, but one thing, well a couple of things, that aren’t mentioned about the difference between the national stadium and White Heart Lane are the length of the grass and the crown of the pitch.
The grass at Wembley looks longer, lusher the ball seemed to get caught up in their feet more. Also at The Lane the pitch slopes off at the sides, has a crown, Wembley looks completely flat, might just make passes out wide move quicker at the old place, where here they slow up.
Hey, excuses. Play better, play smarter and no one would be talking about the ground, just about the bad start to the new season by the reigning champions.