That’s yer lot for this one - now it’s over to Alan Smith for West Ham v West Brom...
Well that second-half was powerfully tedious. The first showed a few signs that there might be something to get excited about, but the treacherous second made us all most disappointed. One volley by Hazard was the closest we got to any sort of excitement or goal, and beyond that was just a seemingly endless sequence of scrappy bits of play. Ah well. Presumably neither side will cry themselves to sleep over the result, but maybe a bit more excitement next time, please?
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Full-time: Tottenham 0-0 Chelsea
Ppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins + 4: Begovic puts a long ball down the right out, then Azpilicueta gets a booking for preventing Spurs from taking the throw quickly.
90 mins + 2: Pedro goes off, replaced by Ruben Loftus-Cheek, which inspires Diego Costa to chuck the bib he was wearing over his hoodie into the air. The scamp.
90 mins + 1: Four minutes of added time. Nothing much happens in the first of them.
90 mins: Clinton trips up Kenedy. Make your own jokes, I’m bored now.
88 mins: Njie tries a cross into the middle, and Kane tries to liven things up with a bicycle kick. He misses completely, but it’s nice that he tried. Meanwhile, Barnet gets his wish, with Willian coming off...
I hope Kenedy and Clinton both get on
— Barney Ronay (@barneyronay) November 29, 2015
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87 mins: And it’s terrible, headed away at the near-post. Oh boy.
86 mins: Lamela reacts to being nutmegged by Oscar by pulling the Brazilian back rather cynically. Free-kick in Willian territory out on the left...
84 mins: The last ten minutes have been bad football. You might say the last 84 minutes have been. But then again I’m a connoisseur. You wouldn’t understand. Rose kicks the ball into Willian’s face. Everyone cheers. Apart from Willian.
82 mins: Ivanovic loses out to Njie on the right side of the box, conceding a goal-kick. Which is sliced out of play by Lloris. All unravelling a bit now.
80 mins: Spurs do that ‘take a throw in, pass it back, oh the bloke’s offside’ thing. Well, actually he was flagged offside but the linesman, roughly a yard away, got that wrong.
78 mins: Pedro almost takes advantage of some more indecision in the Spurs defence, but his clip back to Oscar then Hazard is crowded out and the home side clear.
76 mins: Hazard shoots and...well, the less said the better. Let’s just say it went...quite high.
74 mins: Son’s last involvement is to be wrestled to the ground by Fabregas. The Chelsea man adopts that ‘mirthless laugh at the dreadful awfulness and unfairness of it all’ that his manager enjoys so much.
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73 mins: Clinton Njie looks like he’s about to come on, probably for Son.
72 mins: Spurs have been knocking it around on the halfway line for about a minute. It’s not great. A long pass as they look for an outlet sails out.
69 mins: Is this ‘finely poised’ or ‘plodding inexorably along to the 0-0 draw that we all feared it might be’? Lamela harasses Azpilicueta and wins a throw on the Spurs right.
67 mins: Out of nothing, Chelsea go close. Ivanovic clips a lovely cross from the right to the back stick, where Hazard volleys left-footed with power back across goal, but Lloris does splendidly to get down to his left and shovel it wide.
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66 mins: Matic is back on his feet and playing again.
“Regarding Michael in Southsea’s point about the lack of quality on Chelsea’s bench,” writes Shaun Wilkinson, “it seems once again pertinent to point out the roughly forty players they have out on loan. Maybe if they concentrated on building a squad in the traditional sense, rather than this insane scattergun approach to signing and farming out young international talent, they would have more alternatives to the first XI.”
65 mins: Matic is on the turf needing some treatment, after going up for a header with Lamela and being caught with a flailing arm. Nothing sinister there, though.
64 mins: More good work from Son, who feeds it to Lamela, goes for the return pass which is delicately clipped over the top by the Argentinean, and Son gets on the end of a difficult to control shot, which Begovic saves over his head.
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62 mins: Spurs make an awful mess of a short corner, and Chelsea have a counter-attack on, but a pass to Pedro is too short and the advance...well, doesn’t.
61 mins: Eriksen and Son exchange passes on the left side of the area and win a corner. Just bubbling now.
59 mins: Matic gets a booking for an enormously cynical foul on Eriksen. Naughty boy.
58 mins: A spot of miscommunication in the Spurs defence as three men leave a bouncing ball for each other, and Hazard nips in. However, Alderweireld does what they should\ve done in the first place, and puts his foot through a clearance.
57 mins: Painful one for Son, whose ankle is raked (accidentally) by Cahill’s studs.
“I can’t help but look at Chelsea’s bench and see it as a manifestation of the Stamford Bridge malaise,” writes Michael in Southsea. “Papy Djilobodji and Baba Rahman are two players that Mourinho didn’t appear confident in signing, let alone sending out onto the pitch.
“Then there’s John Obi Mikel in his accustomed benchwarmer position and the newly enfeebled Diego Costa, like Clark Kent after a Kryptonite-only diet. It can’t be hugely encouraging for the Chelsea fans.”
56 mins: Interestingly, the man coming on to replace Mason is Erik Lamela, so Dembele will presumably drop back and Eriksen will move inside from the left.
54 mins: Lovely play by Mason and Son, the latter threading the ball through to the former in the area, but he’s dispossessed as he tries to cut inside in the area. Mason goes down looking like he’s twisted something, or possibly done his Achilles a mischief, and it looks like he might have to go off.
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52 mins: Deserved booking for Vertonghen, who barrels through Hazard with a late challenge from behind, and the Chelsea man needs some treatment.
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51 mins: Oscar wins a foul from Son in a style that you’d say was ‘professional’. In that he backed into the winger then threw himself forwards. Willian whips the free-kick over in that threatening manner of his, and Zouma nearly, nearly, nearly gets a foot to it, but Lloris saves.
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49 mins: Mason volleys in a cross that hits Fabregas on the arm in the area, but nothing is given. The midfielder’s arm was tucked tight into his chest, so it wasn’t 100% clear, but the linesman was looking directly at it, so you can file that one under ‘You’ve Seen Them Given.’
48 mins: Mason looks to be the weak link in the Spurs team at the moment. He’s dispossessed very easily on the Chelsea left and they build an attack, one that collapses rather after Ivanovic miscontrols on the right, and Spurs press them right back to Begovic, who shanks his clearance out of play.
46 mins: Further to the point about Fabregas in the first half...
Chelsea had the ball for 18 minutes that half. In that time Fabgregas gave the ball away ten times. Basically it's the main thing they did
— Barney Ronay (@barneyronay) November 29, 2015
We’re back. Well, the footballers are back. It’s back!
“The Spurs defence have very little point of reference on who to mark sometimes,” writes Ruth Purdue. “Chelsea’s front three aren’t playing on the shoulder that much, meaning their starting positions are way infield when the ball is played. It is difficult to be offside to, Spurs players run out as Chelsea player run in. What an exciting matchup!”
File that half under ‘intriguing.’ Not a thriller, but both sides will probably be reasonably happy, particularly Chelsea who have looked much improved, and very compact. But Spurs are managing to pick enough holes to give them some encouragement.
Half-time: Tottenham 0-0 Chelsea
Peeeeeeeeeeep.
45 mins + 2: Willian whips over that free-kick, Ivanovic is free and heads wide when he should’ve done better, but the flag goes up for offside.
45 mins + 1: Walker gets booked for a nasty challenge on Hazard - a proper scissor job that can cause pretty serious injuries, but the Belgian seems OK.
45 mins: Two minutes of added time.
44 mins: Walker plays a daft square pass that’s intercepted by Oscar, but luckily for the Spurs man the Brazilian can’t keep control of it. The ball breaks to Kane via a nice Vertonghen pass, but he leans back slightly and the shot goes over.
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42 mins: Points to Oscar for a delightful nutmeg on Walker - particularly if he shouted “MEGS” as he was doing it - but points knocked off for a daft shot with the outside of his right foot, that had barely any chance of coming off, and thumped into the side-netting.
41 mins: Bit of an iffy moment in the Spurs defence, as a cross comes over from the right and he half punches, half pats the thing away, but luckily for him he manages to boot it clear just outside his area.
39 mins: One of the good things about this Spurs team is that they use the ball smartly. Mason finds himself in a tricky spot out on the right, when he could have just thrown in a cross that had a very low likelihood of succeeding, but instead he played it backwards and Spurs started again. Of course, they then lose the ball and Kane is booked, very harshly, for a foul on Willian.
37 mins: Dier plays a lovely little pass through to Son, who finds himself in some space around 25 yards out in the middle of the goal, but he fires his shot well over and the Spurs crowd deflates like a bouncy castle at the end of a party.
36 mins: That lino gives an offside against Chelsea. The Spurs fans engage in ironic cheering. The lino laughs. Great banter!
35 mins: Worth noting that, improved as Chelsea have been, with Willian, Oscar and Hazard in particular doing good work, Cesc Fabregas has done the square root of eff all.
34 mins: Walker plays a big, massive, booming cross from right to left....well, to absolutely nobody. That was surreal. No idea what he was even trying to do.
32 mins: Ah, silly Danny Rose. He gets booked for taking out Hazard as they both chase a ball into the corner, but there was no need to lunge in there - just stand up, keep Hazard in the corner. Silly Danny Rose.
31 mins: Dembele brilliantly brings down a high ball to set up a Spurs attack, then the ball finds its way back to the Belgian who dances around Fabregas and fires in a low shot, but Begovic gets down to his left and pushes it around the post. Spurs very much back into the game now.
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30 mins: Jose seems happy. He’s been doing a lot of clapping. That’s nice, isn’t it?
28 mins: And more good work down that right by Spurs, as Walker takes over from Mason and sticks a low cross in, but Kane can’t bring it under control at the near post. Interestingly, Walker was chased back with some gusto by one Eden Hazard.
27 mins: Having just said that...Spurs carve out enough space for Kane to whip over a terrific cross from the right to find Son at the back post, but his header is saved by Begovic. Lovely work that by the home side though.
26 mins: Chelsea very much on top here, both in attack and in defence, where they’re just not giving Spurs any space to knock it around in attack.
24 mins: The Spurs fans aren’t particularly happy with the lino in their half, as he’s given a few offside decisions to Chelsea that we’ll call ‘ marginal’. One to keep an eye on for fans of The Narrative.
22 mins: Woof! Rasping effort from Pedro after Hazard brings down a long ball over the top. It takes a slight deflection and goes over, and Chelsea are on top here. Dembele is back on, by the way.
20 mins: Big chance for Chelsea. Oscar creates just enough space down the left to cross over to the far post, where Hazard gets up between two defenders and heads, but it goes over the bar.
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19 mins: Dembele requires some treatment on his ankle after suffering a mishap of some sort. He signals he’s OK to the bench, but Erik Lamela gets warming up anyway.
18 mins: Some neat play by Chelsea around the left side of the box, with a quick passing exchange giving Pedro a half-chance, but Alderweireld just gets there and boots it away.
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17 mins: Eriksen drives towards the box but dithers a little and is dispossessed, and the ball breaks to Kane. He takes a powerful snap shot that deflects slightly off a defender and hops up at Begovic, who does well to get anything behind it - anything, in this case, being his chest and keeps it out.
15 mins: A long ball over the top looks like it’s going through to Lloris, but the strong wind holds it up a bit and the keeper, unusually, doesn’t come out to gather, forcing Verthonghen into some rapid action as he heads it back.
13 mins: Spurs free-kick out on the right, but again Eriksen’s delivery isn’t particularly good, headed away at the near-post. They win another in a slightly deeper position, but that one comes to nothing as either Alderweireld or Dier commits a foul at the back stick.
11 mins: Pedro makes a neat run behind the Spurs defence, coming from left to right, but Lloris dashes off his line like the enthusiastic little soul that he is and clears.
9 mins: Alderweireld plays a lovely crossfield pass out to Rose on the left flank, but after he shifts it inside Chelsea’s approach to this one becomes clear: Spurs have the ball around 40-45 yards from the Chelsea goal, and all the visiting players are behind it.
8 mins: Chelsea carve out something approaching an attack, as Hazard drives down the right channel and spreads to the right for Willian, but his low cross is...well, it was rubbish.
6 mins: Looks like Chelsea’s attacking four are indeed lining up with Pedro on the left, Willian on the right, with Oscar behind Hazard in the middle. Although one imagines that will be fluid.
5 mins: And Eriksen’s poor corner doesn’t clear the first man.
4 mins: Begovic is receiving treatment after getting a blow to the head, possibly the jaw, from what looked like Cahill’s knee. He looks a little shakey, groggy even, but he’ll continue.
3 mins: Tottenham have had the best of it so far, and they create their first chance, shifting the ball across the box right to left, from where Danny Rose plays in a low cross from the left which Harry Kane, Gary Cahill and Asmir Begovic all go for, the Chelsea defender getting there first at the near post to put it behind for a corner.
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2 mins: The Chelsea fans are singing Jose Mourinho’s name. The Spurs fans are encouraging him to leave White Hart Lane, in the traditional robust manner.
1 min: And we’re away. Diego Costa looks delighted on the bench. Deeeeeeelighted.
As ever, in one of the weirder pieces of pre-match music, the PA at White Hart Lane plays ‘Duel of the Fates’, the theme from the Phantom Menace. Here’s a ten-hour loop of it accompanied only by a still shot of Darth Maul, in case that’s your sort of thing.
The consensus seems to be that Tottenham are going to win this one easily. As you might imagine, this is making some Spurs fans quite nervous...
@NickMiller79 we as a fanbase are collectively very uncomfortable with the tag of 'actually slight favourites'
— Tom (@Tomfoins87) November 29, 2015
Apparently Diego Costa isn’t even out there warming up before the game. Stuart Pearce never warmed up on the pitch, and if it’s good enough for him...
Not sure what to make of this.
Harry Kane is wearing gold boots...
— James Maw (@JamesMawFFT) November 29, 2015
Danny Taylor’s Observer column today is about Chelsea losing faith in Diego Costa. Good timing, Danny has.
In the last 10 months Costa has scored seven goals, picked up six yellow cards and been banned for six games for two charges of violent conduct. He has gone, on average, 356.3 minutes without a goal this season whereas at the corresponding stage last year it was 99.8. Virtually all his other statistics – shots per game, accuracy, sprints, and so on – are down. Then consider the teams his goals came against: Southampton, Hull, Sunderland, West Bromwich, Aston Villa, Norwich and a Maccabi Tel Aviv side that have lost all five of their Champions League games, conceding 15 goals and scoring one.
He is, in short, half the player he was and, yes, it has reached the point where it does seem reasonable that a club with Chelsea’s ambitions are now ringing various agents and asking to be kept in touch about the players who might be better equipped to challenge for Costa’s place than Radamel Falcao –a vanity signing from José Mourinho, if ever there was one – or Loïc Rémy.
Mourinho’s own job may depend on it and, however much they try to laugh it off, it was rare to see a manager and player clashing in the way that happened in Tel Aviv last Tuesday when Costa, for the second game running, would have been left with the near-certainty of a goal if he had anticipated a team-mate’s cross. A year ago, he would have cleared everything in his way to get to the ball. These days, he is drifting to the edges, hanging back and doing everything that would not be expected of a scoring specialist.
Jose’s been talking on the telly: “It’s the first time Diego is on the bench...I think it’s normal, he plays every match and things are not going well for his confidence.”
So it sounds like a straight dropping (if you will) rather than just a tactical choice.
“The wigs are off,” writes Cian O’Mahony. “4-6-0. Is this Mourinho’s attempt at 18th century football?”
So then. Absolutely no surprises in the Tottenham team of course, but Chelsea are going with the ol’ no striker/false nine approach. A compliment to Spurs, perhaps, but not a great sign for the rest of us, as generally when Jose pulls this trick it’s not a great sign for the entertainment factor. Hazard is listed as the striker by Chelsea, but it would be a mild surprise if he was the man up top, given Mourinho’s comments about his workrate and so forth. We shall see.
Team news
Tottenham
Lloris; Walker, Alderweirald, Vertonghen, Rose; Dier, Mason; Dembele, Son, Eriksen; Kane. Subs: Vorm, Trippier, Wimmer, Onomah, Carroll, Lamela, Njie.
Chelsea
Begovic; Ivanovic, Zouma, Cahill, Azpilicueta; Fabregas, Matic; Willian, Oscar, Pedro; Hazard. Subs: Amelia, Djilobodji, Baba Rahman, Mikel, Loftus-Cheek, Kenedy, Diego Costa.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Ashington)
Ooooooooh. Full team news to follow...but oooooooooh
At Spurs v Chelsea today. John Terry out injured . . and Diego Costa dropped to the bench. #THFC #CFC
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) November 29, 2015
Preamble
At the start of the season, it wouldn’t have surprised many that this game would feature a potential title-contender. Of course, not many would have picked Tottenham as the team challenging at the top of the table. But challenging they are, and given the fragilities of everyone else, there’s very little reason why they couldn’t win the thing. Well, other than their relatively thin squad, which may well return to bite them sooner rather than later. Perhaps even today, having travelled from Baku on Thursday night for this early kick-off.
But still, let’s not be too negative. Have a good read of David Hytner’s Spurs preview:
Tottenham have momentum. Since the beginning of September, they have won six and drawn three of their nine league fixtures, while balancing the demands of the Europa League, in which they have qualified for the last 32. They have transformed people’s perceptions. When the window shut, practically no one thought they would contend for a top-four finish. Now, it would be a surprise if they did not. And, above all, they have strong identity and belief.
Tottenham have written the manual on false dawns and it is invariably risky and-or foolish to make grand statements about them. But here goes. There is the feeling that, under Pochettino, they have shed their soft underbelly, there is a clearer sense of shared purpose and the general impression of permanence.
When they beat Chelsea at White Hart Lane last season, in a 5-3 thriller, it was considered a shock result. If they do so again on Sunday, it will be nothing of the sort and that is not only because of Chelsea’s extraordinary slump. If Tottenham win, they will be 13 points ahead of them.
And then Chelsea. Poor old Chelsea. Little old maligned Chelsea. We all feel sorry for Chelsea, don’t we? What’s that? We don’t?!?!?!? Jose’s boys have actually shown some signs of revival in the last couple of games, with an improved performance against Norwich in the league and then Maccabi Tel Aviv in Europe, but this will be a test to see if that’s just a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory. Like ‘The Name Of The Rose’.
If Chelsea are going to get back on the up and up, they’ll require some hearty motivational talks from their manager. Like this one, for example, that he dished out to Eden Hazard this week:
We have different concepts of the No10, me and him,” Mourinho said. “For me, a No10 does a lot of things. With the ball and without the ball. So for me, a No10 is a very special player in my team, when I play with one which, in this period at Chelsea, I have been.
“In my first period here, we played without a No10. We played with two No8s. In a system of two midfield players and one No10, I demand a lot from a No10. Yes, I expect him to work back.”
Feel the glow from the Belgian after that one. So this should be a good game. Shouldn’t it? What do you reckon? Thoughts to Nick.Miller@guardian.co.uk or @NickMiller79.
Kick-off: 12.00 GMT
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