And that’s all from us. Thanks for reading!
Here’s our match report from the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium:
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And here’s Oliver Skipp: “The first goal always a special one and in that game it means a lot. I think I cut across it slightly, it wasn’t completely perfect, but we work a lot in training on getting to those second balls on the edge of the box. It just bounced up nicely and I thought I’d give it a hit! It means a lot when you come through the club as a boy – you know these London derbies are massive, you know how much it means to the supporters and how difficult these games have been. It thought the boys at the back were brilliant. Everyone dug in, making tackles, making blocks, everything you need to keep that clean sheet.”
Harry Kane speaks: “It’s a really important result. Cherlsea are a top team, tough to play against, and we struggle at home against them. We played really well, especially in the second half when we put our foot on the pedal, and we earned the win. We spoke a lot recently about how clean sheets are going to win you games and we’ve done that well apart from the Leicester game, which was a blip. If we want to be around the top four at the end of the season we’ll need more performances like that today.
[On Conte’s absence] “It’s different, it’s difficult – we want our manager to be there with us and I’m sure he’s itching to get back. I’m sure it’s not nice watching at home and that he’s jumping up and down around the living room. We’ve just got to stay focused, but the staff here have kept us focused and it’s the gaffer’s ideas that we’re working towards – so it’s nice to keep winning while he’s away.'”
He has good reason to look that way today, too – his Chelsea side, despite being shot through with ostensibly exciting creative attackers, looked no closer to working out how to score a goal. Which hardly reflects well on a coach who has made his name forging clever who amounted to more than the sum of their parts. On the other hand, perhaps this is all a lesson in the overriding, unconquerable pandemonium at Chelsea right now: Potter is clearly a very sensible man, yet he has been utterly unable to impose his shrewdness and reason on a club that is being run on impulse. The problem for him is that the next impulse from up high might very well be to hand him his P45.
The question now becomes: just how quietly haunted is Graham Potter going to appear in his post-match interview?
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I’m going to hand over to Alex Hess for the reaction. Thanks for your company – bye!
A computer simulation could have written today’s game and saved everyone the bother. Chelsea dominated the ball but created the square root of diddly squat; Harry Kane scored and was the best player on the field; there was loads of needle, most notably when Hakim Ziyech was sent off and then sent back on just before half-time.
There was one detail that nobody saw coming, though, a spectacular opening goal from Oliver Skipp after 18 seconds of the second half. Whatever belief Chelsea had drained out of them thereafter. It’s bad, you know.
Full time: Spurs 2-0 Chelsea
Peep peep! Spurs continue their mini-revival at home with an ultimately comfortable victory over their beloathed rivals.
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90+1 min Six added minutes.
90 min “Am I the only one,” says Phil Podolsky, “who mentally refers to him as the ‘Real Madrid-bound winger Dejan Kulusevski’? Such a great player.”
He’s 22, which is far too old for this Madrid regime.
89 min: Substitution for Spurs Pedro Porro replaces Richarlison, who has had a pretty good day.
88 min Here’s what this result means for Spurs’ Champions League hopes.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 24 | 29 | 57 |
| 2 | Man City | 25 | 39 | 55 |
| 3 | Man Utd | 24 | 13 | 49 |
| 4 | Tottenham Hotspur | 25 | 11 | 45 |
| 5 | Newcastle | 23 | 20 | 41 |
88 min Richarlison is late and slightly high on Fofana. There’s a VAR check for a possible red card, from which nothing eventuates.
87 min “I’m an Arsenal fan, so my bias is that I absolutely loathe both teams, but I’ve always wondered why anything to the face is supposed to always be a red,” says Dave Konopka. “We see players with very forceful, violent shoves all the time get a yellow - or nothing - but any blow to the face is supposed to be an automatic sending off? I’d rather nobody get hit in the face, but it’s absurd the conventions that have come up around this issue.”
I totally agree. Put with almost offensive simplicity, a Bob Fitzsimmons to the breadbasket is far worse than a light slap to the face. But can you imagine the rows if referees started distinguishing between yellow and red cards to the face.
86 min Mudryk shoots not far wide from distance.
85 min Meanwhile, in Serie A…
84 min Spurs’ last Premier League win over Chelsea was in November 2018, back when they were playing at Wembley.
83 min: Double substitution for Chelsea Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mykhailo Mudryk replace Raheem Sterling and Joao Felix.
83 min Kane deserves that goal after another marvellous performance.
Cristian Stellini’s winning run is going to continue. The substitute Son’s right-wing corner was headed on at the near post by Dier and forced in with considerable glee by the unmarked Harry Kane. The ball was slightly behind him, but he improvised to drag it into the net from six yards.
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GOAL! Spurs 2-0 Chelsea (Kane 82)
And it’s goodnight from Chelsea.
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80 min: It’s kicking off again! Koulibally fouls Kane, then Romero boots the ball away and shoves Chilwell. Stuart Attwell restored order easily enough this time.
80 min If it stays like this, Chelsea will have scored three goals in the last 10 games and six the last 15. It’s getting more than a little weird.
79 min: Spurs substitution Son Heung-min replaces Dejan Kulusevski, which means Richarlison will switch wings.
78 min Corner to Chelsea, who are having their best spell – these things are relative – of the second half. It’s headed away by Dier, and that’s the end of that.
77 min “Come on, Rob, Derby are languishing in League One these days and just got tonked by Barnsley,” says Tom Hopkins. “Don’t just tease us with that nostalgia blast, give us the goal, give us Graham Richards…”
75 min Chelsea have been really poor in the second half. Spurs again win the ball high up the field, with Emerson Royal giving it to Richarlison. He swishes over the bar from 20 yards.
74 min Mason Mount is booked for dissent. Romero wasn’t penalised for an emphatic ball-and-man tackle on Havertz, and Mount gave the referee a mouthful.
73 min He’s back.
73 min Stuart Attwell is still off the field. Meanwhile, the Carabao Cup final between Manchester United and Newcastle United kicks off at 4.30pm. You can follow the build up to that one with Rob Smyth. Wait, hang on.
72 min Stuart Attwell has run off the field. For the second time this afternoon, his VAR communication kit isn’t working. I can think of a quicker solution, lads.
71 min Kane spanks a crossfield pass to find Davies on the left. His dangerous cross towards Richarlison is booted away at the near post by Fofana.
70 min Sterling heads straight at Forster from Fernandez’s scooped pass. It was about a ninetieth of a chance.
69 min I forget to post a link to Oliver Skipp’s screamer. So here it is.
SKIPPPPPP!!!! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/mrTN7O36ZI
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 26, 2023
67 min: Fine goalkeeping from Forster! Felix plays a one-two on the left and pushes the ball infield to Mount on the edge of the D. He flicks it adroitly round the corner to release Havertz, but Forster is quickly off his line to dive bravely at Havertz’s feet.
67 min “Chelsea are suffering from performance dysfunction,” says Jeff Sax. “Boehly put the whole system under pressure by spending money and it has crippled the team’s ability to play.”
66 min Emerson Royal presses Chilwell high up the field, with Kulusevski collecting the loose ball and giving it to Kane on the right. He slightly overhits a cross towards the unmarked Davies at the far post. For a player of Kane’s quality, etc.
65 min Spurs have kept Chelsea at arm’s length since half time, and Romero reinforces the mood by stepping across with authority to intercept a through ball towards Mount.
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63 min “All football fans think that other teams score worldies ONLY AGAINST them, but I’ve often felt Chelsea are a cut above in that regard,” says Saurya Chakraborty. “That thunderba$tard from Skipp reminds me of a last-minute screamer that Oussama Assaidi scored for Stoke against us. I don’t know if he ever scored any other Premier League goals, but in that game in that minute against Chelsea he was basically Messi, Maradona and Henry rolled into one. See also, Nedum Onuoha.”
We really should do a Joy of Six: Bogey Players. I remember Paolo Wanchope scoring three solo goals of admittedly decreasing brilliance against Man Utd from 1997-2000.
62 min: Double substitution for Chelsea Ziyech is off, replaced by Mason Mount. And Denis Zakaria is on for Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
Mount goes to the left, Sterling moves to the right.
59 min Davies gets a chartreu is booked for a late tackle on Loftus-Cheek.
59 min “Rob, presumably the original yellow for the tackle was a kind of off-yellow,” says Richard Bridgman. “The downgraded red-to-yellow for the shove was perhaps a nice chartreuse? Either way, seemingly the two together don’t make a red.”
Please don’t give Infantino ideas. I can hear the commentary now: “He hasn’t gone over the ball, it’s reckless rather than dangerous; it’s a chartreuse for me Clive.”
58 min Denis Zakaria is about to come on, a sensible change at a time when Chelsea are being outplayed.. It probably won’t be long before we see Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as well.
56 min “I know that you’re doing your best, but the teams aren’t helping much, eh?” says Shane O’Leary. “Still, young Hakim provided a little excitement and a merry cant of ‘Hack him, Hakim’ would raise the tempo.”
I can’t be the only one who hears D Mob when he’s on the ball.
55 min Both players are fine, play continues.
53 min Second Half Spurs are at it again. They’re even dominating possession, and James does very well to beat Richarlison to Emerson Royal’s deep, lofted cross. It results in a clash of heads, and both players are down.
52 min “Chelsea are in trouble,” says Mary Waltz. “With their anaemic goalscoring trend they needed the first goal more than most teams. Poor Potter, he will be sacked and I doubt it will help Chelsea in the long run.”
It’ll be grimly fascinating to see how it plays out. I wouldn’t be shocked if Potter resigned at some stage. He’s one of the few managers in England with the integrity to do so, even if it means missing out on a huge payoff. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a unpleasant situation.
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51 min Kane has been masterful since half-time: rolling defenders, playing imaginative first-time passes. Chelsea are on the ropes here.
50 min “Strange incident,” says Tom Stratford of the red card that wasn’t, “but also pretty much the story of Hakim Ziyech’s season given he was also due to be sent off to Paris in January but ended up having to come back that time too…”
48 min Kepa might have done better on the goal, though he must have seen it late because Koulibaly was blocking his view. It was still a storming strike from Skipp, and no I didn’t mean the alliteration.
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What a screamer, his first goal for Spurs! Emerson Royal had a shot saved by Kepa after being played through by Kulusevski, and Fernandez booted the ball clear. Skipp muscled his way in front of Joao Felix to win the loose ball and them, without breaking stride, cut across a scintillating shot from 20 yards that Kepa could only paw onto the underside of the bar and into the net. Pick that out!
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GOAL! Spurs 1-0 Chelsea (Skipp 46)
Oliver Skipp scores after 18 seconds!
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46 min Peep peep! Spurs begin the second half.
Correection: I haven’t a clue what happened. I don’t even know whether Ziyech was booked for the foul on Richarlison or the shove on Emerson Royal.
🟨❌
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 26, 2023
🟥❌
🟨✅
Should Hakim Ziyech still be on the pitch? 😧👇 pic.twitter.com/99X1cj3MDv
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Half-time reading
Half-time chitchat
“Hi Rob,” says Henrik Ohberg. “Is it a boring game?”
Henrik, you have no idea.
“Sterile Domination = Graham’s Potterball (7, 10),” says Mark Hooper.
Heh, very good. This performance is very Brighton 2019-21.
Half time: Spurs 11-11 Chelsea
It’s goalless, and it’s 11 men apiece after a strange incident in which Hakim Ziyech was sent off and then recalled.
The actual football was fairly rank: Chelsea dominated the ball, Spurs came closest to scoring when Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s deflected shot hit the post.
45+6 min I don’t know about the breakdown in communication, but Stuart Attwell clearly decided – rightly or wrongly – that Ziyech’s second offence, shoving Royal in the shoulder/face, was only worth a yellow card. VAR can only come into play if it’s a straight red card.
ZIYECH IS SENT ON!
Well that was weird.
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Emerson Royal shoved Ziyech from behind. Ziyech turned around, affronted and shoved Emerson Royal on the shoulder – except his arm followed through into the face of Emerson. That usually means a red card for violent conduct. Or does it?
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VAR farce incoming! Hang on, now Ziyech is waiting on the touchline and Stuart Attwell is going to the monitor.
ZIYECH IS SENT OFF!
Oh dear.
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45+3 min Havertz and Emerson Royal are also booked. Nothing more for Ziyech, who looks a bit guilty.
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45+2 min Ziyech is booked for fouling Richarlison. It starts to kick off between both sets of players, and Emerson Royal goes down holding his face after a shove from Ziyech. I think Ziyech might be in trouble here.
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45 min Three minutes of added time.
44 min: Good save by Forster! Ziyech sprays a lovely crossfield pass to Sterling on the left. He runs across the line of the penalty area and curls a shot that is beaten away a little awkwardly by Forster, with Davies completing the clearance.
The flag goes up for offside as soon as Davies completes the clearance – I’m pretty sure it’s against Havertz, who ducked to avoid the ball but was in Forster’s eyeline. So Sterling’s shot wouldn’t have counted.
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42 min “Agreed, Kepa made a meal of Kane’s foul,” says Harry Shannon. “But anyone other than Kane would have seen a yellow card. Just because he is England captain?”
Not sure it’s that, at least not consciously. Referees are allowing more physical contact at the moment. I was more surprised that Richarlison wasn’t booked for the foul on James.
41 min Richarlison curls well wide from the left side of the area. This isn’t great.
38 min Kane is starting to cause Chelsea a few problems when he drops off Fofana. Last year, Graham Potter neutralised Kane by playing three centre-backs and four central midfielders, and Brighton deservedly won 1-0.
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37 min I wasn’t actually asking for crosswords answers, I just needed to find a different way to say “sterile domination”.
35 min Now Romero has gone down holding his face after another 50/50 with Havertz. He’s fine.
35 min Romero wins a 50/50 with Havertz and then shoves him as he runs past. There’s usually a bit of needle between these two sides, and it is starting to develop again. Good thing, too, because bugger all else is happening.
33 min Kepa stands with the ball at his feet for about 10 seconds. Eventually Kane comes to meet him, so Kepa picks it up and throws it out to a now spare Chelsea man. It soon goes back to Kepa, who is pointedly bumped from behind by Kane as he kicks clear. Kepa goes down holding his face, which is a miracle of interpretation.
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33 min Wesley Fofana is gingerly feeling a buttock after stretching to cut out Kane’s scooped pass. I think he’s okay.
32 min There has been one shot on target, Joao Felix’s drive in the 18th minute.
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.
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26 min Time for a crossword clue, Chelsea fans.
Loads of possession, not many chances (7, 10)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
This is England 23
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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.
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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.
