When I was in London last time*, back in early April, I had the pleasure of watching Chelsea against Spurs at Stamford Bridge, sat next to some dude who kept singing “Tottenham get battered everywhere
they go” pretty much the entire time. Chelsea would of course end up winning, but only just, thanks to an Enzo Fernández goal. It was a win, but hardly a battering as neither team generated more than a chance or two.
Chelsea won by the same scoreline last night at New Three Point Lane. But this time, it was indeed a battering. Only some incredibly wasteful finishing and a couple great saves by Guglielmo Vicario prevented the Blues from putting up another four-spot just like we had done on our last two visits. That’s now one win for Spurs in our last 18 meetings in all competitions. It happens again, and again, and again, and again. Positively delightful.
Speaking of delightful, Enzo Maresca was quite a bit more jovial after this game than midweek after that one-goal win, against Wolves in the League Cup. He was especially pleased with the clean sheet — like most of us, he probably wouldn’t have put money on Chelsea seeing out a 1-0 win, but we’ve done that twice now this season already, so perhaps we’re learning something after all.
“I’m happy with the one-nil and with the three points, especially because we kept the clean sheet that I think it’s something that we need for the future. We knew that we are a team that, at the end, we are going to score goals, but we need to do better defensively.
“The performance was very good, on the ball and off the ball. For sure, the way we tried to press was very important, but I also think that our game against Liverpool off the ball was top game — was very good. And you need that. You need that if you want to be close to the top — you need to be defensively solid. As I said, we know that almost always we score goals, but we need also to try to concede less goals.”
As Davos Seaworth often points out, it’s “fewer”. Fewer goals. Count ‘em!
But, that aside, defense does indeed win championships as the old cliché goes (or pitching and money, as the LA Dodgers again proved), so getting better at that certainly wouldn’t hurt … especially if we’re only going to manager one actual goal off of nearly three expected goals.
At the end of the first trimester of this Premier League season, it’s a big old cluster of teams behind Arsenal as things stand, with Chelsea right in the thick of it. As we had said before the Sunderland bump in the road, if we can build up some momentum, we could gain some separation from the rest and start solidifying our top-four aims while keeping close enough to the Gunners to make things interesting if (when) they do slip up.
*I’ll be there next over New Year’s, as part of this season’s LiB Tour. Come join me/us.
