It’s just a barrage this season of soccer or football, whatever. I can barely keep up watching games between the leagues and UEFA. Just a deluge of sport in general; the NBA is back in a week or so. Either way, Chelsea played a giant game on Sunday against an imposing Tottenham team that’s fully hitting its stride and after Sunday claimed first place again in the Premier League. Despite their heights and lows in the 2019-2020 season, they’ve settled under former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. This past Sunday, the Blues faced a strong test against another top six opponent, all of which they’ve failed to score goals against this season.
Chelsea lined up again in the 4-3-3 which has been so effective recently, including Mateo Kovacic in the midfield. More than any other team recently, Tottenham threatened the defense in this game consistently using very fast counters to move the ball forward quickly. In the first ten to fifteen minutes, the Blues struggled at times to keep pace on the defensive end, though only giving up one real shot from Spurs. N’Golo Kante hummed today, all over the field as one spoke of this bicycle in the back end, interrupting almost all the Tottenham build ups like an annoying younger sibling. Ben Chilwell looks still to be injured as he somewhat struggled on the left side defensively, not really giving up big plays, but looking clumsier than he usually does . He and Timo Werner, who split out on the left side forward, also struggled more than they have earlier in the season with running the offense through that side of the field. Fortunately with Mason Mount starting to realize his potential as a number 8 in this offense, he’s started to better understand working with Werner and created a glorious goal, called back for a quite questionable offsides that VAR didn’t look at.
With Chilwell straining to get forward, getting almost none of his trademark left footed crosses in, I expected the tandem of Reece James and Hakim Ziyech to be dropping V2s from the right side, but that didn’t really start happening until after the 30th minute. Kovacic was rushing forward in that central right position and really seemed to disrupt the spacing rapport that Ziyech and James have been building. Where Kai Havertz is a space god, Kovacic leaves a lot to be desired. Kovavcic played really well in this game, however his role in the offense is quite incongruous with the changes in personnel, especially if he’s tasked with getting forward consistently like he was. With Werner still struggling to generate offense on the left side, muddledness on the right side, Chelsea, while possessing consistently, could only lob passes randomly to Tammy Abraham and Werner that were really prayers rather than viable crosses. As the announcers and me were barking, Mount continued to run Lampards’ offense to a fault, constantly opting to hold onto the ball and wait for support instead of pushing any sort of counter. The problem with teams like Tottenham and their opponent next week, Leeds who counter and press constantly, is that Chelsea in their current iteration with personnel aren’t used to playing hard pressing teams that have talent enough like Tottenham does to actually break them down defensively. On fast breaks for Chelsea, they lack the game experience to properly take advantage of the fact that Tottenham has so many players forward, so they stall out when they should be pushing down the field quicker and with more conviction. I do believe their best player in this task is Christian Pulisic, who never has fear about attacking defenses, he just needs to stay healthy enough to create that pressure consistently…as a starter…every game.
Early in the second half, James began to feel much more comfortable as Kovacic adjusted somewhat and made consistent pressing moves up the right side and crossed in some delectable balls, none of which Tammy could convert. James, despite being one of the tougher and bigger guys on the team, tends to acquiesce to senior players more often, not sure why and adapts his game to fit them in, rather than the reverse. This seemed to occur with Kovacic, but in the second half, they worked it out and James, who typically needs good space to get off his electric crosses, started to get them going on the run, with less space than usual which was encouraging. Ziyech had a wonderful through pass to Werner, that Tammy somehow managed to negate through a stupid foul right near the edge of the box. It was probably the best non-aerial cross pass of the day for either team, maybe a Harry Kane pass would have been in contention. Kane has taken steps this year towards being a more complete player, despite his lack of youth. He’s not that old, but he’s old enough to pretty much be what he’s going to be as a footballer. This year, he’s really opened up his game and I don’t think Chelsea has faced a player like him yet with this year’s team. They mostly put a lid on him with Kante reading him and all of his vision so well as they did with a comparable Bruno Fernandes a few weeks ago. It bodes well for their chances in Europe especially as the star power in Champions League could in theory figure the best way to bust this really tight Chelsea back line. That back line held fast in this game as well, allowing very few chances, all of which were either confidently gathered by goalkeeper Edouard Mendy or didn’t even reach the keeper with any sort of menace. Kurt Zouma continued his assertive dominance in the line, routinely using his size to edge out defenders in the middle on headers and playing so much better with his feet. Last year, I deeply missed David Luiz long cross field passes that got the attack going when things were a little stale and a spark plug was necessary. Zouma gave us a couple of those on Sunday, like he has all season, honing on his exploration of these skills from last year, bearing breaking fruits to the extent the wings are interested in pushing the ball forward. I can’t say the back line was perfect, but given how the Rennes game went last week with Antonio Rudiger in there, I don’t have complaints really.
Fortunately for Chelsea fans, Havertz is back, never was really injured, just had COVID. Pulisic also made a cameo appearance for Werner in the 74th minute. Kai came on for Ziyech in the 83rd minute. By that point in the game, both teams were just about ready to settle on the result, mostly bandying the ball back and forth with no real attacking threats. Olivier Giroud also came on for Tammy in the 79th minute and just like Rennes, almost sealed the game with a late floater that Hugo Lloris grabbed a hold of. It’s great to see Pulisic out there at all, I mean I’ll believe it when I see him play ten games straight, play two international games straight and then play the next league game. That’s durability to me so for now, I’ll have to subsist on these sprightly, brief victuals of playing time. On the other hand, Tammy’s played so well and at times been so much a facilitator that Giroud is looking for greener pastures in January. I’m confident that a game like today’s would have been different had Giroud been subbed in even in the 60th minute instead of the 79th. Tammy’s still learning how to find his role in this offense and while he seems to have a good intelligence for the game, Giroud is a maestro of space. I’d compare him most favorably to Al Horford when he was on the Boston Celtics. Horford wasn’t putting up the stats that many felt would match his contract, but he didn’t need to. He was an advanced stat favorite because of how he facilitated those around him. Giroud reminds me so much just what he does with his passes, the headers, the way he contorts his body like he did against Rennes to make that ball go in. The game flows through his soul more than Tammy and while Tammy’s showed improvements this year in those aspects, I still think Giroud should more often than not be a late sub for Tammy in most games.
This game really highlighted a lot of issues, but also showcased strengths. Chelsea have played three top six teams in the Premier League this season and have zero goals. Maybe you can count the Carabao Cup goal from Werner, but whatever. They’ve also given up only two goals, to Liverpool, with not Mendy in goal. I don’t know who it was, Caballero or Kepa, it doesn’t matter at all. You have to feel good watching that back line mostly shut down the flaming Spurs that they’ve been the past couple of weeks. Chelsea also fail to realize the moment too and often stick to an offensive game plan that Lampard built when he had a bunch of academy players in the first team for their first few Premier League starts. It made sense for Mount to get kid gloves last year, but now they have real experienced talent in Ziyech, Werner, Chilwell, Thiago and Mendy, along with Pulisic who also came with a lot of big game experience even in his young age. Lampard has to realize that a team like Tottenham can be beat by exploiting breaks and he needs to trust his youngish, but experienced core to have the dexterity and sticktoitiveness to properly take advantage of breaks and score without being vulnerable to counter attacks. I’ll be wildy interested in this weekend’s game against Leeds who press and counter even more than Tottenham, but lack the talent to match. Leeds can hang goals on teams, though Chelsea should be able to score a bevy of goals even if they give up a couple. It’ll be a fascinating outing, one that I hope the Tottenham game plan will have given them the experience to handle swimmingly.
Bo's Gamut 