Tottenham Hotspur suffered their first defeat in the 2023-2024 Premier League. Entertaining Chelsea at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, The Lilywhites did not move in front of their own supporters.
The home side gave up 1-4 after two of their players, namely Christian Romero and Destiny Udogie, were given red cards by the referee. This result makes Tottenham drop to second place in the 2023-2024 Premier League standings.
Both teams played at a high tempo from the start. It didn’t take long for the hosts to immediately take the lead through Dejan Kulusevski’s quick goal in the sixth minute. Receiving Sarr’s pass, Kulusevski fired hard with his left foot, the ball was deflected by Colwill and scored! Tottenham 1-0 Chelsea.
Tottenham almost doubled their lead in the 13th minute. The fast attack scheme started with Bissouma’s pass for Johnson, followed by Son’s cross and perfect shot. The ball went into the goal, but VAR ruled it out for offside.
In the 21st minute, it was Chelsea’s turn to have a goal disallowed by VAR. Sterling entered the opponent’s penalty box and fired a hard shot, scoring a goal. The Chelsea squad was already celebrating, but VAR intervened and annulled the goal for Sterling’s handball. The score remains 1-0.
Cristian Romero’s hard foul awarded Chelsea a penalty. Palmer stepped forward as executioner and fired a hard shot into the bottom right corner. The score remained 1-1 until the break.
Entering the second half, Tottenham was hit by disaster again. Iyonema Udogie, who received a yellow card in the first half, was sent off by the referee after roughing up his opponent in the 55th minute.
After Udogie’s exit, when Tottenham practically only played with nine people, Chelsea was able to take advantage of this to take a 2-1 lead through Nicolas Jackson’s goal in the 75th minute.
However, Tottenham managed to equalize just four minutes later through Eric Dier but the goal was again disallowed by VAR for offside.
When the match seemed to be over, Chelsea went crazy with Jackson successfully completing a hat trick with additional goals in the 90+4′ and 90+7′ minutes to bring the Blues to a 4-1 win at the opponent’s headquarters.
Tottenham Hotspur coach, Ange Postecoglou, was quite disappointed with the defeat his team suffered against Chelsea in the 2023-2024 Premier League. However, on the other hand, Postecoglou still appreciated the struggle of his team in this match.
After the match, Postecoglou revealed how difficult it was for him to analyze the match. This 58 year old coach was disappointed with the heavy defeat suffered, but still praised the performance of the Tottenham players who were considered to have started the match very well.
“It was a difficult match for me to analyze. “Disappointed with the result but very proud of the players,” said Postecoglou, quoted by the BBC, Tuesday (7/11/2023).
“I thought we started really well, scored a great goal and were inches away from another goal. We came close to equalizing several times and that shows their spirit. They gave everything and that is a positive thing that we will take from it,” he continued.
The former Glasgow Celtic coach admitted that the two red cards received by Romero and Udogie had a big impact on Tottenham’s game. Postecoglou also mentioned that the match often saw intervention from VAR, causing the match to stop.
“The red card affected the game, I felt like I was standing around waiting for things to happen, with VAR intervening. “It feels like I’m just standing around a lot,” added Postecoglou.
This defeat is the defeat suffered by Tottenham so far this season in the 2023/2024 Premier League. This result made The Lilywhites collect 26 points in second place and at the same time failed to overtake Man City who was at the top of the standings, who were only one point away.
