Chelsea feast as Tottenham melt in the middle again

Spurs were 2-0 up after 12 minutes, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was shaking with noise and Chelsea’s stumbling defender Marc Cucurella was so harrowed by his nightmare start that he’d had to change his boots.

- LAWRENCE OSTLERE

So perhaps the greatest indictment of this Spurs side is that even in that moment of utter dominance, with the game gift-wrapped and in the palm of their hands, you just knew they could fumble it at any moment.

Behind some brilliant Chelsea play to engineer a four-goal comeback was a comedy of Spurs errors, an unravelling of devastating proportions. Jadon Sancho was allowed to dribble from the touchline to the edge of the box unchallenged. Yves Bissouma gave away a needless penalty with a lunge that could be seen long before it happened, yards before he actually clattered through Moises Caicedo. Pape Matar Sarr’s bungled challenge on Cole Palmer was even more foolish, given the forward was facing the corner flag at the time.

Palmer’s panenka penalty could be interpreted as a piece of genius from arguably the best player in the Premier League right now. But it also felt like a piece of insolence saved for an opponent he didn’t much respect, whose fans had earlier pelted him with paper missiles while taking a corner, causing the game to stop. As he celebrated, he cupped his ears to Tottenham fans.

From 2-0 up, Spurs had slipped to 4-2 in less than an hour. A weary-looking Ange Postecoglou later said their mistakes were “born out of desperation”.