What Chelsea did against Spurs that “we haven’t seen in a while” | OneFootball

Chelsea beat Tottenham 1-0 yesterday in a really ugly game. The Blues were incredibly wasteful with their chances, but got the job done.

Their pressing and intensity was superb and really spooked Spurs, who couldn’t cope at all.

Chelsea’s press stopped Spurs in their tracks

Rodrigo Bentancur fouls Reece James but only gets a yellow, leading to tension.

Speaking on the London is Blue podcast, all of their analysts agreed that the press was the main ingredient of Chelsea’s success in this game.

“This felt like the first real press game that we’ve seen in a while. Where the press was consistent where it was taking risks, it was moving a bunch of players forward, it was pressing them into terrible situations. I haven’t seen it like this in a while,” presenter Dan Dormer said.

“So many of our opportunities were created from turnovers and from pressing them with real verve and energy,” Couch Critic agreed.

“You can point to individual moments [that sparked it] for example, Reece James was absolutely livid that Bentancur wasn’t sent off,” CFC Central added.

“The first press after half time he pushes Bentancur into the corner flag. Then you go forwards from here. So I think the occasion was there [for intensity] as well.”

We couldn’t agree more – now we want to see that same energy and intensity in every game we play. We can’t just save it for the derbies.

You can see their discussion in the clip embedded here:

In other news…

We didn’t see Andrey Santos in the second half yesterday, despite the fact he scored in midweek. He’s suffering from Romeo Lavia’s return to fitness, although we all know that won’t last long.

Moises Caicedo was a machine in the game yesterday, and among the highest praise you can get as a midfielder is being compared to N’Golo Kante.