"Sitting through this tightly stitched but still oddly shapeless game of football, you kept thinking: what does this remind me of? The trapped energy, the collisions. The sense of something always but never really happening. Oh yes. Watching the full 90 minutes of Chelsea's narrow but still comfortable 1-0 defeat of Tottenham was like staring at one of those hypnotic drunken city centre brawls that appear on social media from time to time, where nothing ever really seems to start or stop, where the whole things is just a kind of tortured flailing, but one that must also be pored over endlessly in the comments."
"It was fitting it should be Moises Caicedo who provided that moment of incision at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Not just because he was the best player on the pitch, but because this was also a game that might have been designed just to showcase his own extreme skillset, the king of broken play, the Maradona of the crash tackle. It was also fitting the goal was made by counterpressing, the only effective creative element on the pitch. And fitting in a poor Spurs performance that it should be Xavi Simons who made the vital mistake."
"Simons is a good passer, but was basically chased, harried and generally beaten up during his time on the pitch. There are games, styles, formations that will suit the very specific talents of Simons. Spurs offered none of those things here. Simons it was who gave a short pass to Micky van de Ven close to his own goal. Cue Caicedo, all over it like a one man zombie horde, walking through challenges, lunges,"
Chelsea defeated Tottenham 1-0 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The match featured trapped energy, collisions and shapeless, broken play that felt mesmerising but unresolved. Moises Caicedo emerged as the standout performer through decisive interventions and relentless pressing. The decisive goal resulted from counterpressing, the only truly effective creative action in the game. Xavi Simons committed the crucial error with a short pass that allowed the turnover. Spurs provided no tactical framework to suit Simons' strengths, leaving him harried and largely ineffective throughout the match.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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