Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Chelsea: 3 takeaways

#3 Chelsea lacked a good passer in midfield and should have made the substitutions earlier

Olivier Giroud

Chelsea were too one-dimensional in their approach during the first half an hour of the match as they kept playing long balls to Alvaro Morata, their lone striker. Morata had to take on both the Spurs centre-backs all by himself and could hardly trouble them. Hazard had to repeatedly fall back to collect the ball and create moves.

Willian was largely ineffective in the right flank and should have been taken off earlier. Cezar Azpilicueta, the Chelsea right-back, hardly made any overlapping runs in the first half and Marcos Alonso was marginally better in the opposite flank.

Matteo Kovacic was also unimpressive and could not make any notable contribution in the Chelsea midfield. N’Golo Kante was everywhere for Chelsea, but he is not a good passer and Chelsea needed one yesterday to play balls to Hazard and Morata.

Kante, who is a defensive midfielder, is being made to play in a more advanced role for Chelsea and might not be the ideal player to play as a central midfielder. Morata too, should have been taken off earlier as Giroud posed a bigger threat to the Tottenham defence with his physical strength.

Barkley and Pedro’s introduction in the second half injected some life into Chelsea and they started making some incisive moves. They also scored a goal to make the scoreline somewhat respectable for themselves.