Chelsea\u2019s 1-0 victory in north London was settled by Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s first-half strike, but the scoreline understated how one-sided the match felt. The opener came shortly after the half-hour mark in a rapid sequence on Tottenham\u2019s edge. Mois\u00e9s Caicedo won the ball twice in that scramble and fed Jo\u00e3o Pedro for a “gloriously scruffy opener.”<\/p>\n
Thomas Frank had predicted, \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a good game,\u201d but his side rarely looked at ease. Tottenham managed only three shots while Chelsea registered 15. Expected goals underlined the gap: Tottenham 0.05, Chelsea 2.92. Guglielmo Vicario\u2019s reflexes were the primary reason the hosts were not more heavily defeated.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s player ratings reflected the visitors\u2019 control. Robert S\u00e1nchez earned an 8.5 for combining calm distribution with progressive ball work. Mois\u00e9s Caicedo was rampant off the ball and rated 8.3. Jo\u00e3o Pedro broke his drought and received 8.3; Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez (7.4) and Marc Cucurella (7.6) contributed significantly to the dominant display. Other notable marks included Wesley Fofana 7.7 and Trevoh Chalobah 7.3.<\/p>\n
Substitutes Jamie Gittens (66\u2019) and Rom\u00e9o Lavio (76\u2019) registered 6.2 and 6.1 respectively. Est\u00eav\u00e3o and Tosin Adarabioyo were introduced late and did not receive ratings in the report.<\/p>\n
For Tottenham, the starting XI included Guglielmo Vicario; Pedro Porro, Kevin Danso, Micky van de Ven, Djed Spence; Jo\u00e3o Palhinha, Rodrigo Bentancur; Mohammed Kudus, Pape Sarr, Lucas Bergvall; Randal Kolo Muani. Subs used were Xavi Simons, Cristian Romero, Richarlison, Destiny Udogie, Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert. The hosts\u2019 set-piece advantage offered hope, but corners and free-kicks often became dead ends.<\/p>\n
The match left Chelsea level on points with their London rivals in the Premier League top four and exposed Tottenham\u2019s lack of central presence despite a midfield-heavy lineup. For N17 it was an evening to forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jo\u00e3o Pedro’s first-half goal masked Chelsea’s control; Tottenham created almost nothing centrally. .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172,187],"tags":[227,1162,1140],"class_list":["post-4204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-alejandro-garnacho","tag-analytics","tag-caicedo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}