Chelsea got back to winning ways by securing a comfortable 2-0 victory over Tottenham at Stamford Bridge.
After a dominant first half for the Blues, it was Spurs who looked like they’d opened the scoring when Harry Kane found the back of the net, however that goal was ruled out for a push on Thiago Silva.
As the second half rolled around, Thomas Tuchel’s side were in cruise control as a stunning Hakim Ziyech strike, and a Thiago Silva header put them firmly in front.
Tottenham pushed forward for a route back into the game, but Chelsea rarely looked troubled.
The goal that set Chelsea on the road to a much-needed victory at Stamford Bridge was a thing of real beauty.
Hakim Ziyech’s curling left foot strike high to the right of Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris in the opening moments of the second half was so geometrically perfect that it seemed to receive a kiss from both the post and the crossbar on its way in.
Lloris didn’t dive and that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t have saved it.
Equally, it was not the beautiful things that separated Chelsea from their capital rivals here. Not really. This was at times a functional, pragmatic performance from a team looking to ease itself from a difficult run of results in the Premier League. The second goal, for example, was a set piece header from defender Thiago Silva. That one was much more straight forward.
So, no, Chelsea were not brilliant here. They were just better than Tottenham. Much, much better. They were more energetic, they were braver and they were more assertive. They didn’t make the mistakes that Tottenham did and they were much more patient. And because of that they won comfortably.
Tottenham had a moment to look back on with regret in the first half. When Harry Kane turned the ball in to the Chelsea goal, his hand seemed to have brushed the back of Silva. It looked like nothing but when Silva fell referee Paul Tierney blew for a foul. That was probably a mistake. It may be should have been left to VAR at the very least.
So that was a big moment but it didn’t disguise what we saw for the rest of the 90 minutes.
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