Tottenham on Monday suffered their first defeat of the Premier League season as they lost 1-4 to former coach Mauricio Pochetinno’s Chelsea at home. The game was full of drama with Spurs being reduced to 9-men as Ange Postecoglou’s team saw two red cards in either half of the match.
Postecoglou made two changes from the 2-1 win at Crystal Palace last time out as Johnson was preferred to Richarlison on the left wing while Udogie returned from injury for Ben Davies, who was missing from the squad altogether with an ankle knock.
Pochettino went with four alterations from the 2-0 EFL Cup home victory over Championship side Blackburn Rovers last week. Silva and Colwill came into the back four for Badiashile and Cucurella while Caicedo replaced Ugochukwu in midfield. James started in the Premier League for the first time since the draw with Liverpool on the opening weekend of the season, while Jackson led the line.
Spurs took an early lead through Dejan Kulusevski. Pape Sarr laid it to his right for Kulusevski. The winger cut onto his left foot before firing goalwards, and he received a huge slice of luck as the ball deflected off Colwill, wrongfooting Sanchez and flying in.
Red cards galore
All of Spurs’ hard work was undone when Spurs went down to 10 men for a rash challenge by Cristian Romero on Enzo Fernandez inside the penalty area. The VAR and on-field referee Michael Oliver decided that Romero’s challenge was not only enough to award a penalty, but also see the defender given his marching orders with a straight red card. It was a poor challenge and could have caused his international team-mate a real problem. Cole Palmer stepped up to take the spot kick. Chelsea goalkeeper Sanchez jumped on the right side, got his hands on the ball but it was not enough to keep it out of goal.
Tottenham’s fortunes went from bad to worse in the second half as they went down to nine men. Destiny Udogie who was already on a yellow card, lunged at Raheem Sterling just outside his box. The left-back missed the ball and caught Sterling, leaving referee Michel Oliver with no option but to show the second yellow card and send him off too.
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Chelsea understandably dominated the game with 9-men Tottenham looking to hit Chelsea on the break. Chelsea succeeded in taking the lead in the 75th minute. Sterling timed a perfect run and squared it off to Jackson who made no mistake in tapping it in past Vicario.
Jackson added another one in an identical manner in stoppage time to dash all Tottenham’s hopes of taking something from the game. He scored his hattrick a few minutes later to silence all Tottenham fans.
Spurs vs Chelsea First XI
Tottenham Hotspur XI: Guglielmo Vicario; Pedro Porro, Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Destiny Udogie; Yves Bissouma, Pape Sarr; Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson; Son Heung-min.
Chelsea XI: Robert Sanchez; Reece James, Axel Disasi, Thiago Silva, Levi Colwill; Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez; Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher, Raheem Sterling; Nicolas Jackson.
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