Tottenham Are Determined to Lose Football Matches

And also: Delaying the restart is only a yellow card when Arsenal do it.

TOTTENHAM 3-4 CHELSEA

It feels like a lifetime ago that Tottenham Hotspur went up to the Etihad and battered the hell out of the champions of England. Maybe Manchester City are just a poor side, but they’re just about the only outfit that Ange Postecoglou’s boys can beat these days. Since they triumphed over Aston Villa on November 3, Spurs have lost to Galatasaray in the Europa League and Ipswich Town in the Premier League, drew with Roma and Fulham, and lost to Bournemouth. And then they welcomed Chelsea to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday, went up 2-0, and threw it all away.

Granted, they benefited handsomely from Marc Cucurella’s self-destructive footwear choices as he twice slipped on the slick turf to hand them their chances. But they had to take them, and they did. An injury to Cristian Romero seemed to destabilize them, however, and Jadon Sancho—who was lively all night—drifted inside on the dribble and smacked in a fire-starter off the post.

You could feel the Spursiness percolating through the television screen, and while they kept hold of the lead for another 44 minutes, they were also missing chances. Son Heung-min in particular squandered an opportunity when he was through on goal, and you just felt the Iron Law of Football Karma lurking above the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium like the Sword of Damocles. In the space of 23 minutes, they were peppered with three more Chelsea goals, and two of them were criminal penalty giveaways.

The second of those was really nuts, a mentality implosion, and there are questions to be asked around what percentage of this comes down to The History of the Tottenham and what portion is Postecoglou. It’s old hat now to point out that Big Ange may be overcommitted to a singular approach to play, not unlike Arsène Wenger in his later days when his Arsenal teams suffered from a disastrous lack of pragmatism. Spurs did show some fight in the final minutes, getting back in the game with a third goal and going fairly close to a stoppage-time equalizer, but the capitulations are arriving regularly these days.

As for Chelsea, they showed tremendous composure for a young team, never sweating the 2-0 deficit, possibly because they knew how easy it is to get change out of this Tottenham defense. Cole Palmer came alive deeper into the game, darting about and dropping his shoulder to twist up the opposition back line. Enzo Fernández smashed in a volley off a deflected cross following a Palmer pirouette session, and his midfield mate Moisés Caicedo continues his ferocious behavior in the heart of the action even if he got away with a nasty orange-card challenge.

Chelsea look the real deal, in other words, and Enzo Maresca has dismissed the preseason mockers—the squad’s too big! all that money for nothing!—to get the Blues’ house in order. They are playing their way into a title race.

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BONUS COVERAGE:

FULHAM 1-1 ARSENAL

The referees did not cost Arsenal any points at Craven Cottage on Sunday, even if a VAR review ruled out a winning goal from Bukayo Saka on an offside technicality. Gabriel Martinelli simply stepped offside, even if he didn’t gain an advantage from it. Still, there was a particular non-call that will gall Arsenal fans to no end.

In the 41st minute, Fulham center back Calvin Bassey lost a duel with Saka down the sideline in Fulham’s half. It was an Arsenal throw, with Fulham stretched and Bassey in particular out of position. So—like millions of players before him in games large and small—he held onto the ball, taking three touches with his feet and his hand, to delay the restart of play and allow his teammates (and him) to get back into defensive position. The referee whistled to signal he’d clocked Bassey’s time-wasting routine and demand that he stop.

Play resumed, and all the while the commentators (at least on the NBC feed) were chatting about other things. Except, we were reliably told this season, Bassey’s antics are automatic yellow card behavior. A no-brainer. “I had no choice, he knocks the ball away,” the referee might say. “I have no choice. He's put me in an awful position. Dec, you need to go I'm afraid.”

By now you may realize this is what Chris Kavanagh said to Declan Rice during an Arsenal-Brighton match at the end of August after he flicked the ball away after the whistle. It was deep in the Brighton half after Rice was called for a foul. It was instinctive for the Arsenal midfielder—again, the result of all those hours and hours of match play since he was a kid—and it was almost as far as possible from the Arsenal goal. There wasn’t a break on. And yet Kavanagh showed Rice a second yellow for delaying the restart and sent him off. In another incident early in the season, Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard kicked the ball away milliseconds after the whistle blew against Man City and was sent off for the same offense.

But on Sunday, with Bassey consciously delaying the restart in a moment of peril for the Fulham defense, there was no first yellow card, much less a second to send him off. Just an extra whistle. And who was the referee? Chris Kavanagh.

It’s not that it should be a yellow-card offense every time, or that it should have been here. It’s not even about a lack of consistency, which is always an issue in refereeing despite it being the only thing anyone asks of the officials. It’s that the referees never actually cared about protecting the sanctity of the restart from devilish delays. It’s just one of those stupid initiatives they announce at the beginning of the season, enforce for a few matchweeks, and then never mention again.

It just so happens that in this season, Arsenal were made an example of in PGMOL’s quest to get people to Respect Them more. Too bad it cost the Gunners four points in the crucial early stages—and cost them important players (through suspension) for subsequent matches. They should have delayed their delaying of the restart until later in the season, when everyone has stopped pretending to care.⚽︎