Tottenham 0-1 Chelsea (Pedro 34’)
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — Like a cat in a tree you look at the Premier League table and wonder how on earth Tottenham Hotspur got up there.
Somehow they are third, but you wouldn’t know it when they play at home, with Chelsea the latest visitors to ignore the signs and put their shoes on the coffee table.
It’s Three Point Lane to Chelsea fans, after all. Their third straight win here. And even before full-time they were singing “Tottenham Hotspur, it’s happened again!”.
The whistle itself was met with boos from Spurs’ supporters, and while perhaps no other club could conjure such a reaction while sitting so high in the table, it is plain to see this has become a suffocating experience for all involved – and is all the more baffling given their joy on the road under Thomas Frank.
It is a wild contrast. After 10 league games under the Dane and an even split played home and away, they are top of the away table and 17th in the home table, where they sit only above the clubs currently in the relegation zone.
And against Chelsea, the most hopeless of indicators: an xG of 0.05 marking their lowest on record since this divisive statistic came to being in 2012-13.
“I would say that of course hurt massively,” Frank said. “I’ve never been in charge of a team that created that little. I’ll look into what I can do. That’s one thing. Everything is a little bit linked.”
Two moments in particular summed up Tottenham’s struggles. The first was a free-kick out wide in the 64th minute, when Pedro Porro and Mohamed Kudus played the ball between themselves before losing it instead of sending it into the box.
It was inexplicable from a side who have scored five headers in the league this season, a tally only bettered by Arsenal (six).
The second moment came in injury time, when almost every Spurs player went up after winning a free-kick near the halfway line.
It was then played short, then back to goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, who took his time, searched for a pass, and then hoofed it all the way to the arms of the grateful Robert Sanchez at the opposite end.
“That just sums Tottenham up. They’ve been awful. Listen to the boos in this stadium,” Jamie Carragher said on Sky Sports.
Frank could understand the boos, and rather then point at the table, you could sense how much this home hoodoo is hurting the head coach in the press conference afterwards.
“We all sense the frustration and the emotions,” Frank said. “That’s part of football. It’s extremely painful. You’re burning inside and you want to find solutions, watch the game back.”
Frank was keen to downplay the slightest whiff of mutiny from two Spurs players when Djed Spence and Micky van de Ven ignored their boss and headed straight for the tunnel at full-time.
“I think that is one of the small issues,” Frank added, but the fact he had stopped in his tracks, looking over his shoulder at Spence and Van de Ven, certainly made for a lasting image.
Now he must address this internally and somehow quell the burgeoning feeling that the dressing room are not entirely behind him.
That goes for the fans, too. More than 60,000 have poured into this stadium for each league game here this season, meaning the away form will only carry them so far if home continues to be where the pain is inflicted.
And just like London buses, two more home games are on the horizon. FC Copenhagen on Tuesday and Manchester United on Saturday.