Chelsea FC At White Hart Lane: Post-Match Reflections

For a side expected to be fatigued from their long jaunt to Azerbaijan on Thursday in the Europa League (the longest travel in the team’s history, apparently), Tottenham had a certain amount of meanness added to their game as they kept hacking down Chelsea players at will. Maybe it was probably their way of levelling the playing field! And if it was, then fair play to them because it worked a treat since they managed to end the game without any of their players getting sent off.

But I have to say that they only managed to get away with it because Michael Oliver let them. Kyle Walker’s late two-footed lunge on Oscar should have been a straight red card as there was no intent to get the ball. And how did Erik Lamela not get booked for his elbow challenge on Matic as both players contested an aerial ball?

Michael Oliver bizarrely didn’t even call for a foul! Lamela clearly used his elbow to strike Matic in the face in a bid to negate the Serbian’s height advantage and got away with it.

Chelsea on the other hand failed to take adequate advantage of the first half bookings meted to Kyle Walker and Danny Rose. If Hazard, Pedro, Oscar and Willian had made more effort to run at them with the ball, they may have been forced to commit another bookable foul.

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