Few fears for Chelsea as generous Tottenham can prove to be perfect guests

Evening Standard

·03 de abril de 2025

Few fears for Chelsea as generous Tottenham can prove to be perfect guests

The Blues have struggled to break down a low block, a tactic Spurs are not familiar with

It was not quite the perfect international break for Chelsea, as a training ground defeat to the club’s Under-21s and a cancelled day off will attest.

Vídeos OneFootball

But an 18-day break since the defeat to Arsenal last month does feel as if it has done Enzo Maresca’s side more good than harm, applying something of a reset to a campaign that had been clinging stubbornly, but not convincingly, to the rails for a while.

Of those too busy with international duty to be chasing youth team shadows around Cobham, Reece James made his England return and scored a wonderful first Three Lions goal, while Enzo Fernandez played a chief role in Argentina’s demolition of Brazil. The FA Cup quarter-finals have allowed him and Moises Caicedo ample time to recover from their South American exploits, which is handy since Romeo Lavia’s latest injury setback is the one true negative of Chelsea’s two-and-a-half weeks between games.

The stodgy attacking displays of recent months have receded just a little further from memory. The hope is that with Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson back, they have done so for good.

The last home games were all 11 players behind the ball at the edge of the box, it's impossible to attack quickly

Enzo Maresca

Tonight’s meeting with Tottenham marks the start of a nine-game sprint for the Champions League places, with the Blues having slipped to sixth without kicking a ball this week but knowing victory will take them back into the top four.

This feels like a good fixture for Chelsea, in more ways than one.

The returns to fitness of Palmer, Madueke and Jackson - all of whom Maresca says are fit to start - have promised to loosen a forward line lacking in invention and incision from its shackles. A liberation of sorts, if you will. But Maresca insisted on Wednesday that his team’s tediously slow football of late has been as much down to their opponents’ approach as their own.

"I've said many times, no matter who is playing, we want to be direct and quick when they press higher,” Maresca said. “But we cannot be direct and quick when they sit back.

“The last games at home, if you review Leicester, West Ham, Wolves, Southampton, they are all games where 11 players were behind the ball, almost at the edge of the box. It's impossible to attack quickly.”

Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson can exploit Spurs

Action Images via Reuters

Tottenham have it woven into their DNA to be more accommodating, leaving space behind a high line, and in Madueke and Jackson, Chelsea have players back with a natural inclination to attack it.

“For skills, for character, for sure when you have players that they love to run behind more, it's more easy,” Maresca agreed. “[Tottenham] usually play a high line. Probably, it’s a game that we can attack more quick when they press us.”

Palmer, meanwhile, may have technically missed only one club match, but the peak version of Chelsea’s playmaker has been absent for some time, his goal drought having spanned ten games across competitions. Should that end tonight, expect a reception not dissimilar to that which greeted Bukayo Saka’s return at Arsenal two nights ago.

“We always said that going with the international team is the best thing for a player,” Maresca said, with Palmer having sat out the first games of the Thomas Tuchel era. "But overall I think some days off for Cole but also for the rest I think was a good one.”

Chelsea’s home form has kept their season on track, a run of five straight wins at Stamford Bridge coinciding with five defeats in six away. None of those victories, though - against West Ham, Wolves, Southampton, Leicester and Copenhagen - have exactly been the kind to deliver a feel-good boost, set against growing concerns about the atmosphere at the Bridge and resentment towards the club’s ownership, in particular Todd Boehly’s involvement in Vivid Seats.

Beating Spurs (again), however, would do just that, as Maresca knows full well. ”From that win, probably you can build momentum until the end,” he said.