Chelsea 2-0 Spurs

The hosts went ahead through Trevoh Chalobah during a disappointing first half for us and, although we had a spell of dominance at the start of the second period, the Blues doubled their advantage when Nicolas Jackson netted with 18 minutes left.

We were indebted to the alert Micky van de Ven to prevent us from falling behind on five minutes as he raced back to clear Jackson’s shot off the line after the Chelsea striker beat Guglielmo Vicario, although his clearance did go straight to Cole Palmer at pace who stabbed it over the bar from six yards out.

The hosts settled the quicker and went close on 23 minutes when Noni Madueke cut in from the right and drilled a couple of yards over the bar and, just moments later, Conor Gallagher delivered a deep free-kick into our box and Chalobah sent a header from 12 yards looping over Vicario and into the net.

Smart play from Palmer set up Mykhailo Mudryk who curled a yard wide before our first big chance of the game on 38 minutes, Cristian Romero getting a good clean head to Pedro Porro’s free-kick six yards out but it went just wide.

Just before the interval, Porro and Brennan Johnson played a quick one-two with the latter whipping in a cross which was met by Pape Matar Sarr but Chalobah got across to divert it away for a corner, while Johnson’s centre moments later flicked off Marc Cucurella and needed a save from Djordje Petrovic.

As we’ve seen often recently, there was a lot more purpose about our play in the second half and we had Chelsea pegged back in the first 15 minutes, although without forcing Petrovic into a meaningful save. A triple substitution followed with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Rodrigo Bentancur and James Maddison replacing Yves Bissouma, Richarlison and Sarr.

But for all our possession in that spell, it was the home side who scored next, Palmer’s 25-yard free-kick crashing down off the crossbar and Jackson reacted quickest to head the ball home.

We had an immediate chance to halve the deficit but Johnson scuffed a great opportunity wide at the far post from Hojbjerg’s cross, while a flurry of late half chances saw Bentancur, Giovani Lo Celso and Hojbjerg have shots blocked on what was another disappointing night.

Team news saw Ange Postecoglou make five changes to the team that started against Arsenal on Sunday. Emerson Royal and Johnson came in for injured duo of Ben Davies and Timo Werner, while Bissouma, Sarr and Richarlison were in for Hojbjerg, Bentancur and Maddison. On the bench for the first time was Mikey Moore, aged just 16 years and eight months.