Frank Lampard made his most dramatic changes of the season to the Chelsea starting XI and formation. His players delivered on them to the utmost, to a man.
Chelsea had their most comprehensive performance of the season at Tottenham. Jose Mourinho’s Hotspurs did not look anything like a Mourinho team or a top-four contender, and Frank Lampard deserves as much credit for that as Tottenham does. Not a single Blue was less than excellent in the 2-0 win, but two still stood above the rest.
Kepa Arrizabalaga, Goalkeeper: N/A or 8.5
How do you rate a goalkeeper’s performance when he keeps a clean sheet against the team that had scored the fourth-most goals in the Premier League coming into the game and has the second-highest over-performance of their expected goals in the league, but only had to make one save because that team mustered only five shots in total, of which two were blocked and two went wide leaving him to only have to bring down one, and that came in the 96′
Leave it up to the readers. They can either give him an N/A, a rating we normally reserve for late substitutions who don’t have a chance to do much, reflecting how little Spurs made Arrizabalaga do; or they give him an 8.5 for keeping his first clean sheet in over five weeks and the first on the road this season.
Antonio Rudiger, Right centreback: 8.5
Antonio Rudiger made the most ventures forward of the centreback doing so with precise timing and aggression to intercept a long aerial pass from Tottenham’s defenders to their midfielders; to punch the ball back into the final third to keep the pressure contained high up the pitch; or to challenge a Hotspur ball-carrier, knowing Kurt Zouma, Cesar Azpilicueta or N’Golo Kante would cover the space he left behind. He was surgical in these moments.
Rudiger had that extra freedom – and only had to take a single touch in his own box – because he had the most defensive wing-back and midfielder on his side, which is one more way Frank Lampard’s XI and tactics were perfectly tailored for his players and the opposition.
Kurt Zouma, Central centreback: 8
Zouma played a deeper version of Rudiger, thrusting straight up the centre of the pitch but rarely crossing midfield to directly involve himself in the play. Zouma and Fikayo Tomori both made four clearances, keeping Tottenham’s limited offensive attempts to have any real-world impact.
Fikayo Tomori, Left centreback: 8.5
Last Sunday, Frank Lampard decried how his team’s passing could be summed up as “centre back to centre back, full back to full back, back to centre back, back to full back…” He had a point, as Kurt Zouma and Antonio Rudiger shared several score passes, with Emerson joining Zouma for the next most frequent combination.
Against Tottenham, Tomori was part of the most frequent passing dyad, but this time it was with wingback Marcos Alonso. This meant all 21 of Tomori’s passes to Alonso were forward passes, unlike most of those defender-to-defender passes against Bournemouth.
After one early square pass that went straight across and behind the backline and out of play, every pass Tomori made was at a useful angle, again showing the intersection of player abilities, tactical constraints and tactical demands.
Tomori’s connection to Marcos Alonso and everything Marcos Alonso did along the wings, was reminiscent of how well the centreback – wingback – winger combination on the left worked under Antonio Conte. Alonso is the only holdover from that era, but Tomori’s midfielder-quality ball-handling skills gave Chelsea an even smoother ability to play the ball up.