Chelsea ease past Tottenham

Goals from Trevoh Chalobah and Nicolas Jackson in either half gave Chelsea an eventually comfortable 2-0 defeat of a lacklustre Tottenham Hotspur side at Stamford Bridge. 

LINEUPS

CHE XI: Petrovic; Gilchrist, Chalobah, Badiashile, Marc Cucurella; Moises Caicedo, Gallagher*; Madueke, Palmer, Mudryk; Jackson

CHE SUBS: Bettinelli, Sturge, Acheampong, Tauriainen, Dyer, Casadei, Castledine, George, Deivid Washington

TOT XI: Vicario; Pedro Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Emerson Royal; Bissouma, Sarr; Johnson, Kulusevski, Son*; Richarlison

TOT SUBS: Austin, Dragusin, Moore, Skipp, Hojbjerg, Lo Celso, Rodrigo Bentancur, Maddison, Bryan Gil

Action: In good form, bar their annihilation at the Emirates Stadium last weekend, it was Chelsea who were impressive and on the front foot in the opening stages of the first-half.

They did eventually break the deadlock mid-way through the first-half when Conor Gallagher’s free-kick was headed in across goal and into the top corner by Trevoh Chalobah with the goal standing after a short check with the VAR for offside.

Ange Postecoglou, coming under a bit of pressure at the moment, did see his Tottenham Hotspur side begin to improve before half-time with the vast majority of their good play coming through Brennan Johnson down the right.

It was Johnson who was the main spark in the second-half, too, for the visitors and he very nearly brought Spurs back level when he got caught in two minds and just eased the ball across the front of goal, between the post and an on coming Tottenham attacker.

However, with Spurs having more of the territory and continuing their improvement, Chelsea clinched all three points with just over 15 minutes of the season to go.

Cole Palmer’s excellent season very nearly had a wonderful free-kick added to the catalogue but the ball bounced down off the cross bar but only as far as Nicolas Jackson, with the Senegal striker able to adjust well and loop his header into the net on the rebound.

Nicolas Jackson makes it TWO for Chelsea! 🔵🔥 pic.twitter.com/7HkXFoPD7N

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 2, 2024

Spurs were quite worryingly toothless for the remainder of the campaign and it was a bizarrely comfortable and impressive 2-0 London derby victory for the Blues in the end.

The big picture: Mauricio Pochettino, up against his former side, remains under pressure in the Stamford Bridge dugout but he can see Chelsea into the top six or seven and European spots before the end of the season. Tonight’s win puts them two points behind Newcastle United and just three off Manchester United. Tottenham’s loss was their third in a row and they are seven points adrift of the top four and the UEFA Champions League spots with four games to go. 

Man of the match: Conor Gallagher. An assist marked the first-half but Chelsea’s stand-in captain put in a generally excellent performance against his potential future club if rumours are to be believed.

EVENTS

Kick-off

’24 | GOAL: Chalobah (1-0)

Half-time

’72 | GOAL: Jackson (2-0)

Full-time