Tottenham’s 2-0 win at Chelsea lifts Spurs up the Premier League table
Tottenham beat Chelsea 2-0 at Stamford Bridge last Saturday evening in the Premier League, a result that moved them up the standings. In reality it was only three points in the table, but the victory has had a bigger psychological effect around the club.
Spurs began the season poorly and went into the Chelsea game in the relegation zone with just one win, against promoted Coventry, following back-to-back 17th-place finishes and with noteworthy absentees from their best team. Historically this fixture has been hostile to Tottenham: in their 34 previous Premier League visits to Chelsea they had won only once, and it was their first win to nil at Stamford Bridge in any competition since December 1986, nearly 40 years earlier; the other recent Stamford Bridge success came in April 2018 under Mauricio Pochettino.
Tottenham’s early-season struggles were acute — they took until the 86th minute of their fifth match, when they were 3-0 down to Aston Villa, to score their first league goal of the campaign. Since the international break they drew 1-1 at Manchester United, a result the report says they really deserved to win, and then recorded a 3-1 victory over Coventry; all of the goals in that win came from outside the box and the match produced 0.86 expected goals.
At Stamford Bridge Spurs finished with 68.9% possession and won through a freak Mike Penders own goal and an individual Mathys Tel strike after a 45-metre carry. The team’s 0.74 xG did not reflect how often they reached dangerous positions, and the match produced relatively few clear-cut chances despite frequent entries into attacking areas.
The game was the first start at the base of midfield for £85m summer signing Mateus Fernandes and the first time he paired with Sandro Tonali in Spurs’ new midfield. The report states that everything went through Fernandes and he proved he is most effective in a deeper midfield role; he registered more touches than any away player in a Premier League game this season (124), led the side for tackles (five) and completed 92.2% of his 102 passes.
Fernandes’ pressure-related numbers were notable: 89 touches under pressure was the fifth-highest by a player in a Premier League game this season, and his 48 touches while under high pressure inside his own half was the highest total in the competition. His pass completion rate while under pressure was 91.2%, he played 27 line-breaking passes (the 12th most in a Premier League game this season) and 21 of those were made while under pressure, a figure the report says no other player in the division has topped all season; he achieved these figures away to Chelsea and helped Spurs bait Chelsea’s press and play through them.
Tottenham’s final-third efficiency remains a concern: 58 final-third entries produced only 0.74 xG, one of the worst ratios by any team in a Premier League game this season, and nobody in the squad has more than one league goal so far. The report names Dominic Solanke, Omar Marmoush, Sávio, Mohammed Kudus and Mathys Tel as players who need to improve their finishing. “We are improving a lot,” De Zerbi said after the win. “We are improving in the mentality in the group, in the relationships between the players and on the pitch.”
Using the average Opta Power Rating of each team’s next five opponents, Spurs have the easiest run in the Premier League: Crystal Palace (home), Leeds (away), Ipswich (home), Sunderland (away) and Fulham (home), and the report says that on the basis of their performance at Chelsea they should be hopeful of winning all of those matches. Having won their last two games, five more consecutive wins would produce a seven-game winning run — something only Aston Villa managed in the whole of last season — while Spurs remain three points above the relegation zone and two points shy of the top six.
After that favourable sequence, Tottenham face a more difficult run of fixtures against Arsenal, Liverpool, Brighton, Bournemouth and Manchester City. This is an article by Opta Analyst.