Labouring
What’s the last thing you want to hear only minutes before you take to the field against the current league leaders and London rivals? That probably your best player’s partner has gone into labour. Add in the absence of your most creative midfielder and an already difficult task gets a whole lot harder before you’ve even left the changing room.
Yet for all the sudden absentees and subtexts, for all the talk of retribution and racism, for all the unexpected selections and unforeseen circumstances, the things that brought us down were the most predictable, the most simple footballing principles you can imagine. Keep giving the ball away and failing to clear your lines and you’re dead in the water.
As unlikely as it seemed after a first half where we could hardly string two passes together, the outcome of the game was for a while within our grasp. But suddenly in the lead and with Chelsea rocking, we once again sat off them and tried to see it out. Whether it’s something we’ve been told or something psychological, we’re giving teams the chance to take a grip on the game. When you’re on top, keeping doing the things that got you on top. Keep pressuring, keep attacking and keep the intensity.
How things have changed. A Chelsea team with more flair than your average lifeboat against a Spurs team with all the invention of Fifty Shades of Grey. And twice the filth. Yet for all Chelsea’s newfound creativity and much talked about trio of attacking midfielders, only one of their four goals wasn’t the direct result of a mistake. Two poor clearances from Gallas cancelled out his sweetest of equalisers, and Walker continued a dodgy couple of months with a bizarre back-heel to set them up for their clincher.
We made a lot of chances, even in the first half. But we’re far too easy to score against. We invite pressure through our inability to keep hold of the ball. How much we’re noticing that Modric and Van der Vaart aren’t there anymore. And I dread to think how many goals we’ve already conceded from fluffed clearances.
Once again, there were signs that we can do good things – but we need to do them for longer than a single half. You can’t always hold on like we did at Old Trafford. You won’t always get the breaks and your opponents won’t always miss their chances. It’s very easy to concede three goals in 26 minutes when it looks like the game’s going your way. Even when you’re dangerous at the other end, you’re p*ssing into a hurricane. You’re labouring.