Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur faced off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in their EPL Matchday 22 encounter. Both teams needed to win to boost their chances of making the top 4 in the league. Tottenham had lost their past 2 consecutive league games, while Chelsea under new manager, Thomas Tuchel had won one and drawn one of the games.
Chelsea started the game brightly and were in complete control as Tottenham looked to sit back and hit on the counter, a tactic that has worked to great effect this season. It was not until the 24th minute that Chelsea finally found a breakthrough, Eric Dier got into an entanglement with Chelsea striker, Timo Werner and brought him down, conceding a penalty. Jorginho gleefully struck a powerful penalty down the right hand corner of the goal. Chelsea were in control until they lost 36 year old defensive lynchpin, Thiago Silva to injury as he stretched to cut out a through ball into Chelsea’s box in the 36th minute. In the second half, Tottenham came out more, causing a couple of nervy moments for Chelsea, but they came closer through Brazilian striker, Carlos Vinicius who missed a header that he should have scored from just 10 yards out. Chelsea ground out the result and returned to Stamford Bridge with a 1-0 win over Tottenham.
The result meant that Jose Moirinho has now lost consecutive home league games for the first time in his entire career, and Chelsea have finally beaten Top 6 opposition in the league for the first time this season. Tuchel became the first Chelsea manager since Jose Mourinho himself to keep three clean sheets in his first three matches in charge of the club. Chelsea move into 6th place on the table, 4 points behind 4th placed Liverpool as the race for Champions League football for next season heats up.
