Ruthless Chelsea crush Spurs in another derby victory
Second-half goals from Thiago Silva, N’Golo Kante and Antonio Rudiger gave Chelsea another victory over London rivals Tottenham.
Spurs caused them problems in the first half, largely because boss Nuno Espirito Santo surprised them by playing with three forwards and attacking them from the start.
Blues boss Thomas Tuchel responded by replacing Mason Mount with Kante at the interval – and within 12 minutes of the restart Chelsea were two up.
Veteran defender Silva opened the scoring by rising to head home a left-wing corner brilliantly delivered from the left by Marcos Alonso, who was then denied a goal by Eric Dier’s block on the line.
But luck went against Dier when Kante’s speculative shot deflected off the Spurs man and in off the post.
The home side never looked like coming back from that – and keeper Hugo Lloris produced a fine save to keep out another Silva header from an Alonso corner.
Lloris was unable to keep out Rudiger’s injury-time third – a low shot from 15 yards out after Timo Werner had pulled the ball back from the right.
Chelsea have now won eight away league London derbies in a row.
Chelsea: Kepa, Azpilicueta, Christensen, Silva, Rudiger, Alonso, Kovacic, Jorginho, Mount (Kante 45), Havertz (Werner 70), Lukaku.
Subs not used: Bettinelli, Chalobah, Saul, Hudson-Odoi, Chilwell, Ziyech, James.
