Spurs 1-4 Chelsea | Vicario: “Fans’ applause meant a lot to us”

Guglielmo Vicario was clearly touched by the reaction of our supporters after our nine men gave everything in defeat against Chelsea at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Monday evening.

We’d already lost Cuti Romero to a red card on 32 minutes when, 10 minutes into the second half, Destiny Udogie picked up a second yellow card, leaving us two men short with the scores level at 1-1.

‘Vic’ was in inspired form with the rest of the team as our nine men held out for the next 20 minutes, Chelsea finally breaking through for 2-1 on 75 minutes. Even then, we created three chances, including Eric Dier’s goal narrowly ruled out by VAR, before the visitors wrapped it up with goals in injury time.

The result signalled the end of our unbeaten start to the Premier League campaign under Ange Postecoglou - our first loss in 11, after eight wins and two draws - but the overriding emotion from the fans in N17 was certainly one of pride on the final whistle, as the players went off to a standing ovation.

Speaking on our Review Show, Vic told us: “We are so thankful to the crowd, they applauded at the end, and it meant a lot to us because they have seen all the effort we’ve put in, so a big thank you to our people, to the Spurs fans and now we cancel this defeat and move on to Saturday.

“We gave everything. We have to be so proud of what we did on the pitch. Of course, we are sad for the result, because we always want to win, but the effort we made was so big, and I think the fans appreciate it.

“We have to be proud of everyone, a big effort from Pierre, Eric, everyone... Skippy, Rodri, Emerson. It wasn’t easy, so many changes, but we have a big mentality, and we can get over these situations.

“It was an unbelievable performance. I think we have to work on what we can improve, but we showed many good things. We have to clear our minds now, it’s difficult after an emotional game like this, but we recover and then we go again and prepare the best for the next game.”