It was a match of two completely different halves. First 45 minutes showed a more intense Spurs side – Nuno Espirito Santo’s men pressed the European champions hard and it looked as if Tottenham only had a bad day in their previous Premier League match against Crystal Palace.The came the half-time break and Thomas Tuchel’s impact in all it’s glory.Sat, 25/9, 14.30: (2.80) CHELSEA (3.00) MAN CITY (2.95)Chelsea’s skipper Cesar Azpilicueta spoke about the hal-time break, how ‘unhappy’ Tuchel saw his squad’s performance thus far and how he gave his squad a frank assessment to inspire them to victory against the city rivals.Spurs dominated the opening period before they turned it on after the break. Chelsea eased past their London rivals in the end, with Thiago Silva, N’Golo Kante and Antonio Rudiger scoring in a comfortable 3-0 victory that sent them top of the Premier League standings.Azpilicueta admitted after the game that the German could not keep quite and let his team continue to play the same way.‘He was not happy, we were not happy with our performance,’ the Chelsea captain told Sky Sports.‘Even though we were able to arrive around the box we did not shoot on target, they created a few chances where we could have conceded.‘Even in duels we were not as good as we usually are. We were sometimes too open and it was something that we had to address.Sun, 26/9, 18.30: (2.50) ARSENAL (3.20) TOTTENHAM (3.15)‘Playing like this, we couldn’t expect to win the game. The best thing we could do was to arrive at half-time at 0-0.‘The reaction was good, everyone is humble enough to accept this and go again and give a strong second half.’Substituting Mason Mount off for Kante was a move many questioned. But by doing so, Tuchel instantaneously injected more intensity into Chelsea’s play. And even after the final whistle, Tuchel was still angry about how Chelsea had started the match, saying his team ‘wanted to impress by skills’ rather than aggression.’I was absolutely not happy with the first 45 minutes.’ Tuchel said. ‘In general we lacked intent, we lacked energy and needed to be more relentless in duels and to decide 50-50 balls for us.’Tuchel now unbeaten in six big six away games:Tottenham 0-1 ChelseaLiverpool 0-1 ChelseaMan City 1-2 ChelseaArsenal 0-2 ChelseaLiverpool 1-1 ChelseaTottenham 0-3 Chelsea pic.twitter.com/WiAytEj2Bt— Zak ⭐️⭐️ (@ZG1999_) September 19, 2021 ‘I had the feeling we wanted to impress by pure skills, but a game like this in the Premier League, a derby at Tottenham, it is not only about skilful play.’It is also about aggression, about winning duels and performing better as a team. We lacked energy and spoke clearly about it at half-time.”In the second half it was a very good performance and a well-deserved win in the second half. It was a very good reaction, I am absolutely happy with the performance in the second half.’Western Africans secure Chelsea’s win over SpursIn two days, both team’s play their EFL Cup games – Tottenham are headed to Molineux where Wolves will host their ex manager while Chelsea welcome Aston Villa. But what is even more important are teams’ next Premier League games – in five days, Chelsea are hosts to English champions Manchester City where Pep Guardiola will seek revenge for the Champions League final and up north – Tottenham head to the Emirates Stadium to play the North London derby.
