Chelsea show up Jose Mourinho and Tottenham to seize top four advantage
Chelsea 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur: Goals from Olivier Giroud and Marcos Alonso saw the Blues move four points clear of their rivals in the race for the top four
Miguel DelaneyStamford Bridge @MiguelDelaney
38 minutes ago
Daylight opens again between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, thanks largely to a chasm between their ideas on the pitch.
Frank Lampard’s side were rewarded for actually trying to play football, and some brave decisions, to beat Spurs 2-1 and go four points clear in fourth.
Jose Mourinho’s negative approach actually ended up being ideal for Chelsea, and the perfect antidote in order to finally get their second league win in 2020.
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That was how off-form Lampard’s team had been. That is why there should be bigger questions about Mourinho’s attitude, and how he’s been speaking all week.
From all the build-up and battened-down set-up, you would have thought Chelsea were one of the great attacking forces of the 21st century… rather than a relatively young and off-form side under a young manager who had four wingers out injured, their top scorer unfit on the bench, few goals from midfield and many of their own defensive issues.
Spurs didn’t exploit any of this. As against RB Leipzig, they just weren’t set up to. The manager was far too fixated on their own weaknesses, their own absences. He thereby didn’t so much set up to play football, but some kind of military cosplay: drilled defensive organisation and only really attempting to attack from the siege weapons of set-pieces.
We’ve seen it all before, and it’s getting easier to work out. Chelsea did so with impressive enthusiasm, as did Liverpool and Leipzig. And that’s where the big question is.
Mourinho may bleat on about how this is all he can do, and paint an attempt at any other kind of football as some kind of suicidal madness, but this is the fourth time he’s attempted this set-up in the last month.
