1 year ago
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29 min Richarlison is very lucky to avoid a yellow card for a cynical trip on James.
27 min: Hojbjerg hits the post! Richarlison was flattened by Fernandez as he laid the ball across to Hojbjerg 22 yards from goal. His low drive took a biggish deflection off the lunging Fofana and spun onto the face of the post. Kepa didn’t move.
26 min Time for a crossword clue, Chelsea fans.
Loads of possession, not many chances (7, 10)
25 min Ziyech’s corner is headed away at the near post by Richarlison. Chelsea keep the ball, with Sterling and Loftus-Cheek combining to tee up the unmarked Fernandez in the D. His first-time shot is blocked by his fellow World Cup winner Romero.
24 min Chilwell sprints past Emerson Royal on the left and moves into the area, but Royal recovers well to stretch and put the ball behind for a corner.
20 min Kane, who is starting to look sharper, drags a tame shot wide of the far post from 25 yards.
20 min “Here’s Dier,” says the commentator Martin Tyler. At least I think he said ‘here’s’.
19 min: Chelsea substitution Wesley Fofana replaces Thiago Silva, who sat down on the field to ensure the game would be stopped when Spurs had the ball. We’d all do the same.
18 min After very good play by Havertz, Joao Felix whistles a rising drive straight at Forster from the edge of the D.
17 min Thiago tried to run off his injury but it’s no good. It looks like a problem with his left knee.
15 min Thiago hurt himself while putting that ball behind, or possibly when Harry Kane landed on him, and is receiving treatment.
13 min Kane beats Thiago beautifully on the halfway line and finds Davies in space on the left. The Spurs counter-attack loses its way for a few seconds until Kane gets the ball again on the edge of the area. He shuffles away from Thiago, nutmegs James and is about to shoot when the recovering Thiago pokes the ball behind for a corner.
12 min Possessionwatch: Spurs 33-67 Chelsea.
12 min Kulusevski leads a dangerous Spurs break and tries to run the last man Thiago Silva, who reads Kulusevski’s intent and intercepts. Good defending.
11 min Chelsea have dominated most of their recent games, certainly between the penalty boxes, and so far this is no exception.
8 min Romero is down holding his face after an elbow from Thiago Silva. He made contact with the collarbone rather than the face, and VAR isn’t interested.
7 min Fernandez, 40 yards from goal, clips a lovely, slightly angled pass over the top of the Spurs defence. Joao Felix runs off Lenglet, eight yards from goal, but just can’t reach the ball on the stretch.
That wasn’t dissimilar to his goal at West Ham, though there was one big difference: it wasn’t a goal.
6 min See 5 min. Chelsea are passing the ball around in the middle third.
5 min Plenty of early possession for Chelsea, which suits both sides.
3 min “I think most Spurs fans are resigned to waiting to see which team turns up today,” says Roy Everitt. “ My fear is that they show Chelsea too much respect and are happy with a draw, when they could probably win comfortably if they are anywhere near as good as they were against City. But we’ll see soon enough. Or you will – I’ll be relying on the MBM while I wrestle with computery stuff.”
2 min Chelsea have a big penalty appeal turned down by Stuart Attwell. Sterling shuffled into the area and went over after a clumsy challenge from Skipp. There was a bit of contact, but VAR decided – rightly I think – that it wasn’t a clear and obvious error.
Sterling is not amused.
1 min And they’re off.
“Death threats,” says Matt Dony. “Because a bunch of guys playing a game aren’t doing as well as some berk on the internet would like. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so damn disappointing and sad. The video Mark Hudson posted when he was fired from the Cardiff job was a perfect reminder of the human element to these things. Obviously, business decisions and sporting decisions need to be made, and it clearly wasn’t working out for him. But seeing his family’s reaction (especially his children) was sobering.
“There’s occasionally a glee and a celebratory reaction to a managerial struggling and sacking, and to an extent that’s part of the theatre of football and the fan experience. But we shouldn’t let it blind us to to the reality of a man with a family out of work, needing to relocate to a completely different part of the country, uproot their children, start again. And below the elite clubs and managers, it’s not like multi-million pound settlements are being thrown out left, right and centre. We’ve all shouted at our teams, players and managers. We’ve all shouted at opposition. But there are real people with real lives involved. It’d be Nice if everyone could just, yknow, grow up a bit. Is that too much to ask? (Yes, it’s a rhetorical question…).”
Footballers (and managers) were dehumanised a long time ago, probably before we were born, but it’s surely never been as corrosive as it is now. Even during the tabloids wars of the 1980s, it was much easier for the victims (if that’s the right word) to escape. What interests me about Potter is that, as far as I know, he’s the first high-profile manager to openly talk about it. I wonder if, and I’m not being flippant here, this might end up as his Chelsea legacy, not unlike Marcus Trescothick being best remembered for changing attitudes to mental health rather than scoring nearly 6,000 Test runs.
We used to get a few pantomime death threats on the MBMs actually. I can’t remember the last time I received one, though, so let’s see what we can conjure up today.
“Warming to the prospect of this afternoon’s game,” begins Bill Hargreaves, “glancing at the picture of fan paraphernalia for sale on a hawker’s stall when - hang on a minute - there are two ‘number one fan’ mitts for sale. Surely there can only be one, as they said in ‘Highlander’? Something for the FA and UEFA to get their teeth into, me thinks. On a less important note, has Graham Potter signed a contract with the devil?”
He should have waited for the Spurs job, but that’s another story. I’m not getting into it, okay!
Graham Potter speaks
[Tell us about the six changes] Well, it’s one change from the Dortmund game: Raheem’s coming in for Mudryk. We thought the performance [in Dortmund] was a strong one, and we hope we can maintain the same performance levels. The Southampton game came two days later so we had to make changes for that.
We need to score, simple as that. Against Dortmund we did everything apart from that. [Is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang being back on the bench a nod to that?] Yeah it’s a nod to that, it’s a nod to his reaction, it’s a nod to how well he’s trained, it’s a nod to his experience, which I think can help. He’s pushed himself back into contention.
“Are online threats really defining us in 2023?” wonders Ian Copestake. “The last threat I got was back in 2012 and it was over the telephone. Far more real. My mum did apologise though.”
Mate, you need to check your junk folder. I sent you an important email this morning.
More pre-match reading
This is England 23
Team news: six changes for Chelsea
Spurs are unchanged, Chelsea are not. Graham Potter makes six changes to the side that lost at home to Southampton. Reece James, Thiago Silva, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Hakim Ziyech, Raheem Sterling and Kai Havertz replaces Cesar Azpilicueta, Benoit Badiashile, Mateo Kovacic, Noni Madueke, Mykhailo Mudryk and David Datro Fofana.
Tottenham Hotspur (5-2-3) Forster; Emerson Royal, Romero, Dier, Lenglet, Davies; Skipp, Hojbjerg; Kulusevski, Kane, Richarlison.
Substitutes: Austin, Tanganga, Sanchez, Pedro Porro, Sarr, Perisic, Danjuma, Lucas, Son.
Chelsea (4-2-3-1) Kepa; James, Thiago, Koulibaly, Chilwell; Loftus-Cheek, Fernandez; Ziyech, Joao Felix, Sterling; Havertz.
Substitutes: Bettinelli, Badiashile, W Fofana, Gallagher, Mount, Zakaria, Madueke, Mudryk, Aubameyang.
Referee Stuart Attwell.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of Spurs v Chelsea in the Premier League. When Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte enjoyed a never-ending handshake at Stamford Bridge in August, you’d have got long odds on neither being at today’s match. And you’ve got even longer odds on one of the teams being in tenth place.
The good news for Graham Potter is that Chelsea have a brilliant recent record against Spurs, with nine wins and three draws in the last 12 games. The bad news for Graham Potter is that Chelsea have a brilliant recent record against Spurs, so the criticism – and probably the death threats, and what a phrase that is to type during an introduction to a football match – will increase.
Kick off 12.30pm.
English (US)