And so, the unbeaten run came to an end.
We all knew it would sometime, but did it have to end in such a disappointing style and against the one club, we hoped it wouldn’t?
It’s the morning after the night before and I wanted to leave some time for my head to clear before I put pen-to-paper, I wanted to remain proactive rather than reactive, but, watching what happened, at Wembley, against a Tottenham side that didn’t just beat us but outclassed us and could have won by a larger margin, it’s hard to draw any positives.
The secret to getting a result, away from home, against tough opposition, is to keep it tight, quieten down the home support and then move on from there, not to be on the back-foot, defending frantically and letting in two goals in the opening quarter of an hour.
Okay, we may moan about the free-kick for the first goal being a bit dubious and we could mention the clear penalty that Hazard earned but wasn’t given, but we mustn’t mask the obvious faults that were staring us in the face.
Sides have worked out that to stop Chelsea you simply don’t let Jorginho dictate the pattern of play, but then again it doesn’t help when the likes of David Luiz give the kind of insipid performance that makes you realise why Antonio Conte discarded him.
I could go on and on, but, perhaps, Maurizio Sarri summed things up better when he, in his after-match interview, he remarked about those who wore our shirts today:
“I am disappointed because we played very badly. I think we played very badly in all directions – physically, mentally, technically and tactically.
“Today I didn’t like anybody.”
This week, for Chelsea, will be a crunch week, Sarri will have to get his troops back on track with a Europa League tie coming up and then a crunch home fixture against our near-neighbours Fulham.
As for Tottenham, we’ve heard the celebratory DVD’s, cups, scarves and t-shirts are selling well, bless them!