“Passive” Chelsea accused of playing like a small team against rivals at home

Xabi Alonso set up Chelsea to play on the counter, but the idea never really looked like working and the Blues were beaten.

The Daily Mail’s Kieran Gill has accused Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso of looking “foolish” after getting his tactics wrong against Tottenham last night.

Passive Chelsea “never looked like winning”

Chelsea “never looked like winning” and their tactics were “passive,” according to the journalist.

His setup was accused of “not befitting a club that say they want to be competing with the biggest and best.”

“They showed no authority, no ingenuity, no sense that they were prepared to make the most of what little possession they had as the ball was hoofed in hope amid their 32 per cent.”

It’s damning, and pretty true. There were just enough shots on the Spurs goal to convince fans that things could go up a gear at any moment, but in the end their showing fizzled out and any hopes of a revival were ended by Cole Palmer’s red card.

That incident was given some coverage here, correctly called “naive nonsense” by the writer. The attacker was lucky last week against Everton, and didn’t get away with it a second time.

In other news…

Alonso spoke about Mike Penders’ mistake and how he was going to help him recover from it.

The decision to sit deep ended up backfiring on Chelsea, who the battle for possession and then lost the game.

Joe Cole talked about the mistake Mike Penders made for Tottenham’s goal and said it was a technical mistake on the punch.