(Football news) As his crop recovered magnificently against Aston Villa, Mauricio Pochettino—who is preparing for another Lilywhites reunion—saw Spurs pay a heavy price for a subpar first half as they suffered a painful 3-2 North London derby loss to Arsenal.
When the halftime siren at Villa Park blew, it seemed as though Chelsea’s fate was sealed. Thanks in large part to the habitual Blues wastefulness in the closing third, Unai Emery’s team had taken a two-goal lead thanks to a poor own goal by Marc Cucurella and a brilliant strike by Morgan Rogers.
Despite Craig Pawson having the best view of a perceived shove from Benoit Badiashile on Diego Carlos, the VAR intervened and convinced the on-field official to chalk the goal off, leading to Pawson receiving an earful from several enraged Chelsea stars as they were cruelly denied a courageous comeback triumph.
Gallagher admitted to feeling “gutted” at full time as Chelsea winless run in all tournaments stretched to three matches, but they remain safely in the top half of the standings in ninth position and are very much in the European mix heading into the final few games; seventh-placed Newcastle United have played a game more and are only five points better off.
While profligacy has reared its ugly head more often than not for Chelsea recently, prolific performances have been easy to come by at Stamford Bridge, where they have won five and drawn one of their last six matches and have scored multiple goals in all of them, albeit while also conceding more than twice in all but one of them.
Chelsea’s penchant for goal-laden games at home and Tottenham’s engrossing defeat versus Arsenal certainly gives rise to an all-action affair on Thursday, where Ange Postecoglou’s men have some derby day wrongs to right after failing in their bid to quell the title-chasing Gunners juggernaut.
Curiously, Spurs arguably performed better in the half that they conceded three goals to the 45 minutes where they netted twice, but even though calamities from David Raya and Declan Rice gifted Postecoglou’s men a late route back into the game, goal number three eluded them as they fell to back-to-back defeats.
While Postecoglou also had a few choice words about the officiating, the Australian could not argue that set-pieces were his side’s undoing once again, and no sooner was their top-four fate back in their own hands to being out of their control; they sit seven points below Villa with two games to make up.
Spurs, who are still nursing their wounds from their humiliating 4-0 drubbing at Newcastle United, have only managed two victories in their previous ten Premier League away games. They have also only managed one goal in their last three road games while giving up eight goals at the other end of the field.
Of the 52 goals they have given up this season, four occurred during their agonizing home defeat to Chelsea in November (Postecoglou insisted on the high line with his team down to nine). Tottenham has only won one of their previous 33 games at Stamford Bridge, where current Blues manager Pochettino orchestrated a 3-1 victory nearly six years ago.
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