game.
The second “Battle of the Bridge” didn’t have so much riding on it, wasn’t quite so ferocious, the team form on the day was reversed and though the result was the same the ending was better.
It’s six years since that previous “Battle”, while one Chelsea player from that game made it onto the park – Azpilicueta was a sub, Loftus-Chee started this one but didn’t make it off the bench for the last one – four of Spurs’ starters in 2016 started in 2022, Ben Davies started this one while coming off the bench previously.
At the off Spurs looked to be on it, much like they were in ’16, but that quickly changed and for much of the rest of the game they were lucky to be second best. It was a shockingly poor performance. One that looked like just going to Stamford Bridge scared them, what with all the talk of the very few victories there in the Premier League era.
Chelsea were pressing and Spurs couldn’t handle the pressure. The font three when receiving the ball were falling over and coughing it up with ease. The midfield pair and wing-backs were absent and the back line were doing too much fannying about at the back. The problem seemed to be wanting to many touches, the front three – though mainly Son and Kane as Kulu didn’t seem to be getting many balls – trying to control the ball and dribble around their defenders, instead of one touch, one-twos, pass and spin.
What they were trying just wasn’t working.
Though they weren’t exactly peppering Hugo with shots – they only managed three on target all game – it was no surprise that they took the lead. From a corner though, woeful defending that saw plenty of white shirts standing around a couple in blue while leaving the scorer all on his lonesome to volley in. 10 white shirts in the box to 5 blue. The only surprise was that Sterling didn’t head it over.
It needed changes at half time. I called for Perisic and Bissouma for Sessegnon and Hojbjerg, but Conte waited and then when it came it was a bit of a surprise. Richarlison for Sess and a shift in formation to the old 4-4-2. They were a bit better after this but still not what you’d want, overall.
Richarlison making his debut looked manic and with the way things were going he looked red card manic.
The equaliser came 10 minutes later, of course from one of those I thought should have been taken off at the break. Spurs finally getting bodies forward and close enough together to make a difference, as they tried to play out of their own box. Hojbjerg hit a sweet strike.
Cue the scrams from Tuchel. Richarlison offside. Well, yes but the keeper had a clear view of the ball and didn’t complain. Cue more shrieks about a challenge hours previously. Bentancur looked to have got the slightest touch on the ball, many others don’t think so but the ref obviously did and it was so long before the goal to be irrelevant.
For once Spurs weren’t getting the shitty end of the stick. Tuchel squared up to Conte and gave him a blast of vegan breath. His crying would only stop for the time he pranced down the touchline to celebrate them taking the lead again.
🗣 “Lucky I didn’t see you…making you trip over would have been well deserved…😂😂😂”
Antonio Conte on Instagram to Thomas Tuchel. 📸 pic.twitter.com/YXKJZqtJzH
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) August 15, 2022
Again more poor defending, with nearly every white shirt being attracted to the ball, leaving Sterling and James with just Davies in front of them. This brought more changes with Perisic and Bissouma finally coming on, for Son and Bentancur. The former hadn’t shown up at all, the latter maybe Conte seeing Taylor looking to make up for not giving Chelski that free-kick.
It would be over but this Spurs have a bit of fight about them. They were fighting at the end, getting a couple of corners. The second of which saw Perisic’s set piece glanced in by Kane, off James’s knee. Cue celebrations and more caterwauling from the home side.
At the previous corner Romero had dragged their new very expensive left-back over by his hair. Surprisingly not VAR’d into a red card for Romero. maybe they remembered what had happened earlier, as seen in this Tweet which was retweeted by Cuti himself…
Dejen de llorar con la jugada donde el Cuti Romero le tira el pelo, en esta es el doble de falta de Cucurella al Cuti y no cobraron nada tampoco. Taylor fue parejo en su arbitraje. pic.twitter.com/ghXpUYp9RY
— Gonzalo (@gonarias_) August 14, 2022
Chelsea battered Spurs, they were all over them but only managed fewer shots on target and only managed to take a point. Now other teams they be saying that getting an away point after being so bad, is a good sign, of course the media were crying over their favourites not winning.
Not the only ones crying, as Tuchel petulantly wouldn’t let go of Conte’s hand, leading to a face off which saw both of them receive a red card – Conte surely can get this rescinded. he then went on to bleat about the ref and both goals.
So last time, Spurs wasted a great opportunity in getting a draw from a winning position, here they gained a good point from a losing position, while playing awful. It could have been worse…