Tottenham 3-1 Chelsea
by Kadeem Simmonds
at Wembley Stadium

SO MUCH is made of tactics in football. How a team lines up prior to kick-off can settle a match before a ball has been kicked.

So when Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri said his team were unable to cope with Tottenham’s 4-3-1-2 formation on Saturday evening and praised Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino for his gameplan, it was remarkable to see the Spurs boss admit his team didn’t play with a formation.

Or not one that can be simply explained by traditional number sequences.

For Pochettino, Tottenham are more than rigid systems, they are about transitions and sequences.

“We don’t use a fixed formation. If you follow us, you know the game that we play in the Champions League, [League] Cup and Premier League.

“We don’t talk about formation, we talk about tactics, animations, how we play in a different way when we have possession in the opposition half, how we organise the team in a defensive formation when we don’t have the ball.

“Maybe it is difficult to see the way Tottenham [line up on the] pitch.”

It sums up how the home side were so dominant, their fluidity too much for Chelsea to handle.

The constant image throughout was of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Heung Min Son running at the Blues defence like lions in the wild hunting down their prey.

Ironically, the opener came from a free-kick. Christian Eriksen’s delivery found Alli’s head, who expertly used the pace of the ball to guide it straight at Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga.

What should have been a routine save ended up being a goal, as Arrizabalaga dived underneath the ball in an attempt to push it over the bar — he pushed it into the roof of the net.

If he was at fault for the first, there was nothing he could do for the second, mainly because of the expertise of Kane.

Kane shaped his body like he was going to aim for the far side of the goal. Seeing this, Arrizabalaga primed himself to dive to his left.

However, Chelsea defender David Luiz blocked the goalkeeper’s line of sight and Kane whipped the ball back towards the near post.

Not set, Arrizabalaga could only watch the ball sail past him and find the bottom right-hand corner of the goal.

Two goals up within 15 minutes, the game was pretty much over.

Spurs went in search of a third goal and had plenty of opportunities to get it.

When it did come, it summed up Tottenham’s tactics, animations and how they play differently when they have possession in the opponent’s half.

A simple ball down the line from Moussa Sissoko set Son off.

Jorginho was the Chelsea player tasked with slowing the Tottenham winger down.

However, Son left him for dead without doing too much, when Luiz rushed over at the edge of the box, the Spurs attacker knocked the ball past the Brazilian with such ease you would have thought Luiz was actually running to see a friend in the crowd and had no intention of making a tackle.

With only Arrizabalaga to beat, Son did just that with a cool left-footed finish into the bottom right-hand corner.

Substitute Olivier Giroud’s header gave the Blues a thank you for turning up goal with six minutes to go but not even that could dampen the mood at Wembley.

And the worrying thing for the rest of the league is that according to Pochettino, that wasn’t even his side’s best performance this season.