1-0 down in front of a raucous White Hart Lane crowd and having barely a created a chance in forty-seven minutes, Chelsea were definitely in trouble. Andre Villas-Boas' typically high defensive line and athletic central midfield had made it difficult for Eden Hazard and Oscar to find space between the lines or anywhere else for that matter. When the Blues' two diminutive creators did find a pocket of green, neither were particularly effective. Chelsea's attempted to pierce the high line with long diagonals between full-back and centre-half but few of those difficult passes came close to finding their mark.
Tottenham possessed the half's two outstanding performers in Andros Townsend and Christian Eriksen. Townsend's quick feet and ability to cut inside off the right wing created problems for Ashley Cole and he uncharacteristically eschewed low percentage long-range shots in favour of finding a teammate in a dangerous position. Eriksen's vision and intelligent passing were a constant threat to the Chelsea defence so it was no surprise that he was at the heart of the move for the opening goal. Frank Lampard gave Eriksen too much space 30 yards from his own goal in a central position but few players could exploit that looseness so expertly. The 21-year-old burst past the England international with one touch of his right foot before sending an accurate low cross to Roberto Soldado with his left. Soldado's lay-off just about made its away to the oncoming Gylfi Sigurdsson who finished into the bottom corner.
Sigurdsson is a fairly limited player technically but his ability to come off his wing and make late central runs does make him difficult for the opposition right-back to mark and in this instance, he left Branislav Ivanovic trailing in his wake. Despite not playing brilliantly and lacking some control in midfield, Tottenham were in front and looked more likely to score next. On two occasions just before half time, Lampard left Paulinho to double up on the man in possession in an attempt to win the ball back quickly but when Spurs retained possession, Paulinho was left untracked while charging towards the 18-yard box. Chelsea were particularly fortunate to escape unscathed after the Brazilian hit the outside of the post after a Townsend pass put him one-on-one with Petr Cech.
With his side desperately lacking creativity, José Mourinho introduced his most creative player. Juan Mata came on for the ineffective Jon Obi Mikel with Ramires now partnering Lampard in midfield. While Mata did play well and it was his pinpoint set-piece delivery that set up John Terry's equaliser, Chelsea's recovery was primarily built on more traditional Mourinho values. There was a noticeable increase in work-rate and intensity with Chelsea now pressing in twos and threes on a consistent basis.
Lampard and Ramires raised the stakes in midfield and put huge pressure on the Spurs attackers and started to win turnovers with increasing regularity. This is borne out by the statistics with Chelsea winning 7 tackles in the first half with three of those coming in the middle third of the pitch. After half-time, between the 45th minute and the 81st minute when they were reduced to ten men, Chelsea won 11 tackles with 7 coming in the middle third. In total, Lampard and Ramires made seven and six successful tackles respectively with Moussa Dembele their nearest challenger in that statistic with four.
Eriksen became an increasingly peripheral figure as the second half progressed and it felt significant when in the 62nd minute, he received the ball in the in the Chelsea half but this time wasn't given any time or space by Lampard who quickly dispossessed him. The waning of the Dane's influence is evidenced by the significant decrease in his amount of touches in the second period. In the first half, Eriksen had 32 touches at an average of just over one touch every 90 seconds whereas after the break, he had only 5 touches in 25 minutes (one touch every 300 seconds) before being substituted.
Fernando Torres lifted his level of aggression to match his teammates with some interesting consequences. In the first ten minutes of the second half, Torres twice turned on the ball and ran at the Chelsea defence to great effect leaving the lumbering Michael Dawson bamboozled and on his backside on the second occasion. In between those two runs, he maliciously dug his nail into Jan Vertonghen's nose after unnecessarily tripping the Tottenham defender. Referee Mike Dean warned both players later in the half after another mini-conflict with Vertonghen pushing Torres after being fouled. Therefore it wasn't exactly a surprise when an incident involving the two players lead to the red card being shown. Soon after brilliantly setting up a one-on-one for Andre Schurrle, Torres was slightly reckless in challenging for an aerial ball that Vertonghen was always going to win with contact inevitable, but there didn't appear to be any spiteful intent this time and a second yellow card seemed like a very harsh decision. However, it is pretty difficult to feel any sympathy for the Spaniard given his nature of his previous tangle with Vertonghen and he was also lucky to get away with a blatant dive in the first half.
As usual, the red card would change the game with Chelsea going from the likely victors to having to cling on for a draw. They did manage to hold on despite the best efforts of the elusive Dembele and probably finished the game the happier of the two sides after showing flickers of the old Mourinho fire in the second half.
