London is Blue Dispatch #090

Focusing on just the 90 minutes of a tense London derby perhaps wouldn’t do justice to just how much went into 3 invaluable points.

Let us start with the fact that Spurs’ tendency to rotate their 3 CMs and FBs to overload the center takes an exhausting level of focus to keep up with. Chelsea’s asymmetrical engine room of Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez played every available for their respective nations in the World Cup qualifiers in South America. At this point in the season, both must have been feeling the physical and mental strain when they landed back in London.

And yet Caicedo exemplified his indefatigable self, screening his backline, closing down Bergvall one moment, and then Udogie seconds later when they rotated positions. He won 8 of his 9 ground duels despite going down early with an impact injury from Djed Spence, and ended the game by rising to 2^nd in the PL for recoveries – underlying his importance in helping pick up the loose pieces by being everywhere all at once. He was desperately unfortunate not to add the caviar on top with a scintillating volley that was disallowed for God knows what.

Enzo meanwhile scored the winner - his 10^th goal contribution in the league, continuing a radiant run of form that saw him star in Argentina’s demolition job of Brazil only days ago.

Then there was Malo Gusto, at 18, hailed as the next best rightback in the world, at 21, left adrift between the U21 French team and the senior side. This season has unquestionably been the hardest of the young Frenchman’s fledgling career, but this was perhaps his best display in arguably the toughest circumstances. He began the game next to Moises Caicedo as the inverted fullback, occasionally raiding the right flank before moving to the left, doing a stellar job across all three positions. Heung-Min Son did not even attempt a single dribble. The lethal crossing from Lyon is still missing, but this performance, in the most congested part of the battlefield, oozed the kind of self-assurance that has been missing for most of this campaign.

Nico Jackson’s absence left a black hole up front where all long balls disappeared for the past month or so and his return could not have offered more proof of his usefulness to a frontline. 52 seconds was all it took for him to undo Spurs’ entire warmup drill of trying to step up on a long ball to catch attackers off side as he raced into space, leading to the ball cannoning off the post off his foot.  

Cole Palmer broke an 860 minute dry spell that stretched over 11 long games, picking out the dimunitive Fernandez between two hulking Spurs’ centerbacks. Just goes to say no matter who you are or what you do, two weeks off does you a world of good.

Lets not leave Maresca out here. Backs to the wall, his engine room slowing, he took some bold calls. For the last 20 minutes (including the ridiculous 12 added minutes) he moved Neto from right to left and then to centerforward. Gusto moved from inverted right back to left midfield. KDH took Enzo’s place and Tosin slotted in as the extra CB to offer protection against aerial bombardment. It invited additional pressure but it equipped the Blues to deal with it better too. In the end, individuals shrugged off collective struggles from the past few weeks to pull together for a game of massive magnitude. Should this continue over a few more key fixtures, it could be just enough to help get that UCL qualification spot and the last remaining European title missing from a glittering cabinet.