Once again, Thomas Tuchel showed us why he is the hottest coach in the league. An unexpectedly attacking Spurs had given Chelsea a bit of a chasing in the first half.
At half-time, Tuchel was decisive: Mason Mount out, N’Golo Kante in. 3-4-3 became 3-5-2, but Tuchel explained afterwards that his switch had been less about tactics than psychology: he was signalling to his players that they needed to match Spurs for energy and aggression.
As usual with Tuchel’s changes, it worked. Thiago Silva headed in a corner, Kanté scored the second off a big deflection, Spurs rolled over, and Chelsea spent the rest of the game finding increasingly baroque ways to miss easy chances, until Toni Rüdiger made it three in injury time. And so Chelsea joined Liverpool and Manchester United on 13 points at the top of the league.
One wonders how Guardiola would react if Jack Grealish or Riyad Mahrez responded to one of his confrontational pep-talks by referring to an alternate reality
Looking up at these three teams - and Brighton - are the champions, Manchester City, whose illustrious coach has lately been spending a surprisingly large amount of time bickering with his own fans. After City drew 0-0 with Southampton, Pep Guardiola spent more time justifying his own recent comments about City’s support than he did explaining what went wrong for his team out on the pitch.
“I was in the flash interviews and every journalist asked me the same question,” his post-match press conference began - although his answers didn’t show the benefit of all that practice.
“I didn’t say anything wrong after Leipzig,” he insisted. “I said we played an incredibly tough game against Leipzig, will be an incredibly tough game against Southampton, I need the support of our fans. I never complained about how many come or don’t come. I never did this in my life.”
Actually, what he’d said after the Leipzig game was: “I would say the last three games we play here we’ve scored 16 goals. So I would like to come more people next game on Saturday. We need the people next game on Saturday, please. Because we will be tired, the team from Ralph is quite similar to the team we play today, it’s a really important game for us. So I invite all our people to come next Saturday, 3pm to watch the game.”
Empty seats
These remarks were illustrated with wide-eyed glances around the stands, as though looking about disbelievingly at the empty seats, of which there had been around 17,000 in City’s 55,000 capacity stadium. The implication was clear: that his team deserved better support than they had got on the night. The City fans who complained were not reacting to nothing.
Now here Guardiola was, four days later, still peevishly denying that City supporters could have had any grounds for being annoyed with anything he’d said: “What I said is just guys, come, be together, the same way I’m going to say now, please come, Tuesday against Wycombe, the Carabao Cup, please come to be with us. That was just what I said, no more than that. Everyone has his own life, sometimes they come, sometimes they can’t, sometimes they want, sometimes they don’t want… What is the problem?”
One wonders how Guardiola would react if Jack Grealish or Riyad Mahrez responded to one of his confrontational pep-talks by referring to an alternate reality in which they simply had not made the mistakes he thought he had just seen them make. But that’s not really the problem: when you are the boss you get to make the rules. The problem is that Guardiola doesn’t have the margin to be wasting time and energy on nonsense like this.
City won last season’s title comfortably but a lot has changed since then. They adapted better than anyone else to football without pre-season or crowds, but this season might require a switch back towards a more high-energy style.
The main difference, though, is that the level of competition is higher than it was. Manchester United have added three major stars, Liverpool would be unlucky to repeat last season’s astonishing 10-week collapse and, perhaps most ominously, Chelsea are no longer coached by Frank Lampard. Guardiola has never before faced as many as three credible rivals for a league title he is expected to win.
Vindicated
Already a narrative is forming which has the potential to be far more irritating to Guardiola than the crowd debate which made him so “grumpy” last week.
Guardiola pre-empted it after the Leipzig game, when he was asked whether City’s six goals vindicated the decision not to sign a centre-forward in the summer window. He replied by predicting that the next time City failed to score, the media would claim it was because they had not signed a centre-forward.
This prediction proved accurate - but the awkward fact is that City have now failed to score in three out of their first seven matches. They spent the summer trying to sign Harry Kane, so it now seems strange to insist there was never any need for him.
Kane was a non-factor in Spurs’ defeat to Chelsea, but he might look rather more influential at the top of a City team capable of serving him up five or six chances per game. City’s failure to make the transfer happen is already looking regrettable for both parties.
City’s visit to Chelsea next Saturday comes at a delicate time, particularly because of the contrast with Chelsea’s decisive signing of Romelu Lukaku, who has already scored four goals in five games.
Lose that and City are six points down and the whole world will be pointing out to Guardiola that if he had any brains he would have signed a centre forward, like Chelsea. How will he cope with the provocation? If his response this week to mild criticism from his own fans - the people who sing his name at every game - is any guide, there may be trouble ahead.
