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MEI 9, 2013
It was the 42nd second-half goal for Tottenham Hotspur this season. The most important? We shall see.
Tom Huddlestone passed to Benoit Assou-Ekotto on the left and he crossed for Emmanuel Adebayor. A volleyed back-heel flick and the ball was at the feet of Gylfi Sigurdsson. He curled his shot past Petr Cech — and Tottenham were back in the game.
Not just this game, but the battle for Champions League football. At 2-1 down, it was almost lost. Champions League qualification was out of their hands. They trailed Arsenal by two points with two games remaining, meaning back-to-back wins for Arsene Wenger’s team and Tottenham would come fifth. Considering they were third in April that would be some fall.
Spoils shared: Gylfi Sigurdsson curls home the equaliser for Tottenham to earn the visitors a point
Match facts
Chelsea: Cech, Azpilicueta, Cahill, Ivanovic, Cole, Ramires, Luiz, Oscar (Benayoun 84), Mata, Hazard (Moses 73), Torres.
Subs not used: Turnbull, Lampard, Terry, Ba, Ake.
Goals: Oscar 11, Ramires 39.
Booked: Ramires
Tottenham: Lloris, Walker, Dawson, Vertonghen, Assou-Ekotto, Parker, Huddlestone, Lennon (Sigurdsson 62), Bale, Holtby (Dempsey 70), Adebayor.
Subs not used: Friedel, Naughton, Defoe, Caulker, Carroll.
Goals: Adebayor 26, Sigurdsson 80.
Booked: Bale, Vertonghen
Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral)
It was not so long ago that Tottenham looked one of the best teams in the country, and certainly the pick of the capital. Third best in London alone would be a devastating conclusion, a step backwards from last season’s fourth. And they hadn’t deserved anything here, Chelsea being superior for much of the game. But Andre Villas-Boas kept applying the pressure and, slowly, Chelsea cracked.
Invisible football, Villas-Boas had called it. And surely Chelsea’s superiority faded from view, their swagger replaced by a nervousness, their control by fluster. Very visible was the tightening of nerves and sinews, as Tottenham rallied. The six-point gap that would have opened with victory narrowed with each attack, and interim manager Rafael Benitez seemed strangely slow to respond. His substitutions changed little; Tottenham’s changed everything.
Chelsea had been all bustle and business. They hassled Tottenham off the ball, and terrified them on it. Oscar was simply exceptional. With a better striker this is a team of title-winning potential. Next season. Yet Tottenham had them rattled.
Opening salvo: Oscar (left) heads Chelsea in front against London rivals Tottenham at Stamford Bridge
With a player like Gareth Bale in the field, of course, a single-goal advantage is no guarantee of victory, and there were hearts in mouths when he tumbled to the ground in the penalty area midway through the second half under pressure from Ashley Cole. Referee Mike Dean was having none of it, though — the Footballer of the Year’s previous misdemeanours going before him.
Yet as the minutes ticked by, Villas-Boas paced and gambled in search of a breakthrough. Sigurdsson and Dempsey were introduced, and for the first time in the match Tottenham were on top. Chelsea were reduced to threatening on the counter and Ramires had the chance of the night, but slipped at the vital moment. Why is every pitch watered to the point of insanity these days?
For close to 30 minutes the contest was as suggested by the league table: a Champions League team, Chelsea, against one destined for the inferior Europa League, Tottenham. Chelsea were superior in every way, they got the early goal, had the best chances, the liveliest midfield. Only in defence did Tottenham excel — because they had to. Bale was quiet on the left, subdued by Cesar Azpilicueta and isolated.
Level pegging: Emmanuel Adebayor scores the equaliser for Tottenham (above) and celebrates (below)
That was changed in the 26th minute by a quite wonderful goal by Adebayor. Infuriatingly against the run of play from Chelsea’s perspective, yes, but exquisite in its execution — a deserving influence on any match.
The counter-attack began with Eden Hazard losing possession, the ball running loose, being regained by Ramires and lost again before falling to Adebayor inside his own area. He began running, purposefully, powerfully taking the ball into Chelsea’s half, on and on, while the four defenders — five including David Luiz — that Benitez likes to believe are better than John Terry, beat a retreat. Nobody went to him, nobody challenged, until Adebayor neared the opposition penalty area, at which he point he lifted the most delightful chip over a curiously helpless Petr Cech.
Maybe he was simply caught flat-footed, maybe he knew resistance was futile, so perfect was Adebayor’s technique. Either way, Cech offered little more than a cursory flick of the wrist, before turning to fish the ball from its resting place.
Back in front: Ramires slides in to put Chelsea ahead again at Stamford Bridge
Yet Chelsea are nothing if not resilient and order was restored before half-time with a second goal. In the interim — use that word with caution around Benitez — Chelsea had sent their substitutes out to warm up, and Terry had received some truly revolting treatment from the Tottenham ranks behind one goal. His mum, his kids, it was all on the table. How he must have wished he hadn’t been returned to the bench when Ramires’ goal went in.
The build-up was excellent, with some outstanding work from Oscar and Fernando Torres on the right flank, before the Spaniard headed inside, feeding the ball into the path of Ramires. He needed no second invitation, hitting it low in his stride and past the despairing Hugo Lloris. It was no more than Chelsea deserved for a first-half performance that looked to cement the required distance between themselves and Tottenham, leaving the north London clubs to duke it out for that final Champions League place.
Juan Mata had signalled Chelsea’s intentions after seven minutes with a shot from the edge of the box that flew just wide. Shortly after, Chelsea were in front — the second headed goal from Oscar in the last week, in his 89th match in a calendar year.
All square: Sigurdsson celebrates as his goal keeps Tottenham's hopes of a top-four finish alive
Mata took a corner from the right, won by Gary Cahill, whose header was travelling wide before Oscar popped up at the far post to head it in from unmissable range.
There were doubts that the diminutive trio of Oscar, Mata and Eden Hazard would play together under Benitez, but this was one of those occasions on which their irrepressible inventiveness really worked. Oscar, in particular, was in excellent form, making a mockery of the idea that exhaustion is the natural consequence of a season in Premier League football.
Chelsea’s trio appeared to take it in turns to bombard Tottenham. Ramires and Azpilicueta combined to put Mata in after 16 minutes, and his first-time shot flew just over, while Michael Dawson took the full force of a Hazard shot to the head nine minutes later. By then, he wasn’t the only member of Tottenham’s back four seeing stars.
