2  Branislav IVANOVIC
26  John TERRY  (c)
24  Gary CAHILL  (  5  Kurt ZOUMA 46)
28  Cesar AZPILICUETA

21  Nemanja MATIC      

  4  Cesc FABREGAS  (12  Jon Obi MIKEL 76)
  8  OSCAR
10  Eden HAZARD 
22  WILLIAN

11  Didier DROGBA    (18  Loic REMY 67  )

Unused subs: 
  1  Petr CECH
  3  Filipe LUIS
17  Mohammed SALAH
14  Andre SCHURRLE
 

  6  Vlad CHIRICHES      
  5  Jan VERTONGHEN
21  Federico FAZIO
33  Ben DAVIES

42  Nabil BENTALEB
38  Ryan MASON  (  8  PAULINHO 58)

  7  Aaron LENNON  (22  Nacer CHADLI 58)
11  Erik LAMELA  (  9  Roberto SOLDADO 74)
23  Christian ERIKSEN

18  Harry KANE

Unused subs: 
13  Michel VORM
16  Kyle NAUGHTON
15  Eric DIER
  4  Younes KABOUL
 

While Tottenham showed a commendable start with them having a go at Chelsea, they were picked off by some incisive football that left out defence floundering to a 0-3 defeat, which is about average for Spurs at Stamford Bridge.

A good, aggressive start saw Spurs press Chelsea and earn a couple of corners, with Kane heading a cross from a cleared corner against the angle of bar and post, before capitalising on Cahill treading on the ball out on the Chelsea right, before driving into the box and firing the ball wide across the face of goal, with players waiting for a pull back.

Chelsea's first real shot on target gave them the lead.  A cross-field ball form the right found Eden Hazard, who turned Aaron Lennon with a 360 turn.  Hazard played a little one-two with Drogba and took the return, leaving Chiriches and Lennon standing, as the Belgian ran in to fire it low at goal from the left hand side of the six yard box, leaving Lloris only able to get a hand to it, but couldn't prevent it going past him in off his near post.  It was a poor goal defensively to concede.

Then one became two when Hazard fed Drogba with a simple pass through the middle of the Spurs defence into the penalty box, and he drove it hard past Lloris.  It didn't help as Lloris, under no pressure, inexplicably gave the  ball straight to Hazard 30 yards out, but the play moved quickly to make it 2-0.  So many times we have let a goal in soon after one here and it knocks the stuffing out of a side and also makes any comeback that much more difficult.  It is especially galling when it could have been avoided.

Where Tottenham had been running at Chelsea's defence and getting joy, they now were dispossessed easily and were confined to knocking the ball about in their own half.  When they did get anywhere near the Chelsea box they found six blue shirts barring the way.  Ryan Mason had a shot when Davies pulled a ball back to him form the left to the corner of the area, but his effort lacked power and Courtois dealt with it without too much trouble.

When Chiriches got the ball off Oscar down by the corner flag, he then gave it away back to him and the Brazilian set up his countryman Willian with a shot that luckily didn't trouble Lloris as it was low and straight at him.  Spurs might have been grateful to have gone in at 0-2, but the chances of our "come-back" record being continued were minimal barring a Chelsea meltdown.

After a couple of bookings, Spurs nicked the ball off Willian and broke, with Eriksen firing a shot just over the angle of Courtois' goal, then another break saw Lennon freed in the left side of the box, but he cut back and had the ball taken off him.  At the Tottenham end,  Oscar just failed to get on the end of a lofted ball over the back four and a shot by Willian almost got diverted in by Drogba at the far post, but it went wide.

For Spurs, one attack saw Kane play the ball behind Paulinho and Hugo ended up saving low form Drogba, as the home side broke quickly, then Lamela scooped the ball up and over the Chelsea back line, but substitute Chadli couldn't get there before Courtois grabbed the ball in mid-air.  In the 72nd minute, Chelsea added to their total, with a ball into the Spurs half catching Vertonghen on the turn and Remy, beat him to it; turned him in the box and Jan performed his slip of last season, leaving the former QPR striker the simple task of beating Lloris from 10 yards out and Hugo couldn't move as the ball went past him low to his left.

Oscar could have made it four shortly after, but shot wide from just inside the box, but by now, unless they could score the goal of the season, Chelsea didn't look that bothered.  For all the possession Tottenham had, it was boys against men ,as they were just picked off when they got near the Chelsea box.   Into the last seconds of injury time, Spurs were awarded a free-kick on the left and Eriksen squared it to Chadli, who drove a shot at goal, but Courtois pushed it wide with a dive to his right.

Not a surprise that Spurs lost, but it was disappointing in the nature of the goals conceded.  All weakly defended and if Tottenham are to give away goals like this, then it will be a long hard slog to May.

Burton Bradstock