Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri declared his side’s performance in their 3-1 humbling at Tottenham as a “disaster”.
The Blues’ unbeaten start to the Premier League was unceremoniously ended at Wembley as goals from Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Son Heung-min gave scintillating Spurs all three points.
Alli and Kane put them two up inside 16 minutes before a brilliant solo goal from Son after the break made it three.
It could have been a rout had Spurs taken all of their chances before Olivier Giroud scored a late consolation for Sarri’s men.
This was a shadow of the Chelsea side that had gone unbeaten in their opening 12 league games and Sarri admits they have a lot of problems to address.
“It’s clear, I knew very well that we had a lot of problems to solve and I think today it was clear for everybody,” he said.
“I hope first of all from the players, because I told them in the last two weeks that we had a big problems with the approach to the match and today was the same.
“This was the first problem, today I saw a lot of problems because we played very badly – physically, mentally, technically and tactically.
“So we have a lot of work, we have a lot of problems to solve.
“We have to try and do something because the defensive phase today was a disaster. The offensive players pressed very badly, the midfielders defended not very well and the defensive line as a consequence was a disaster. The defensive phase as a team was a disaster.”
Spurs climbed above Chelsea in the table and with 10 wins from 13 games they look like again being firmly in the mix at the top end of the division.
This was by far the best they have played this season, though manager Mauricio Pochettino refuted it, and it sets them up for a must-win Champions League clash with Inter Milan on Wednesday and then next Sunday’s north London derby against Arsenal.
“I don’t believe, the performance was good but I don’t believe it was the best performance,” Pochettino said.
“The result is OK, we are so happy, very pleased. I don’t need to talk too much because the players did the talking on the pitch and they deserve the full credit.
“We are so happy now and thinking of the next game on Wednesday.
“To compete in this way the tactic or the system are not important because the attitude and the win was fantastic.
“Now the challenge for us is to keep that level of competition to try and increase and keep because we have talent.
“The most important thing is the three points that puts us in a good position in the table.
“We need to use at some point for the future. We are going to have in a few days a final (against Inter) and then against Arsenal, with this attitude all is possible.”
