August 05, (THEWILL) – In the final pre-season match for English Premier League side Chelsea, the UEFA Champions League winners whose next match will e see them compete for the European Super Cup against UEFA Europa winners Villarreal, let a two-goal lead slip to draw 2-all with Tottenham Hotspur.
It was an evening that began in celebratory fashion for the Blues as Cesar Azpilicueta carried the trophy to parade Stamford Bridge with the rest of the Chelsea squad to the excitement and cheers of their fans, who had filled out the stands and received the trophy parade with a standing ovation for their team.
The fans also applauded a 250-strong cohort of NHS staff welcomed to the game by the club as a gesture of appreciation, to express the gratitude people had for their tireless work keeping people safe during the toughest periods of the COVID-19 pandemic especially last year.
Then, it was time for the football and Chelsea easily dominated large spells of the game as they also did against the other north London club they defeated on Sunday, Arsenal. But unlike against Arsenal, there was an almost one-way traffic for most of the first 45 minutes.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s Spurs were pegged back into their own half throughout and struggled to find headways to make an advance forward enough to put Chelsea on the back foot. It was a near fruitless search in the first half.
Chelsea made the pressure pay off through a Hakim Ziyech opener. The Moroccan hit a powerful strike into the bottom corner following excellent work by French midfielder N’Golo Kante to win the ball back in the middle. That looked like the first of many goals except that Timo Werner and Marcos Alonso were stopped by goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini.
The Blues emerged from the break with much of the same dominance they exerted in the first period. Once more a sustained period of querying Spurs backline, Ziyech found a way to score his second thanks to a slick passing move down the left involving Werner, Kai Havertz and Alonso.
It could have remained that way or got worsen for Tottenham but Thomas Tuchel rang in the expected substitutions, introducing no less than seven players to go with the two he had made at half-time. It is all part of the pre-season bid to ease players back to full fitness for the start of competitive action.
To wrap up the game, Tottenham snuck in two goals before the final whistle to complete the comeback. a draw. Lucas Moura’s goal, that halved the deficit, took a big slice of fortune via a deflection off Antonio Rudiger before Steven Bergwijn levelled.
Tuchel is aiming to claim another continental trophy in his first time in the EPL when they clash with Europa champions and Samuel Chukwueze’s Villarreal on Wednesday, August 11.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
