Spurs moved above their rivals into third with victory
Sunday 25 November 2018 19:43, UK
Mauricio Pochettino masterminded Tottenham's impressive 3-1 win over Chelsea on Saturday night and the Sunday Supplement panel dissected how the Argentine got the better of his Italian counterpart.
Tottenham moved above Chelsea into third place in the Premier League after inflicting a first league defeat of the season on their London rivals.
The home side raced into an early two-goal lead after strikes from Dele Alli and Harry Kane, before Heung-min Son's superb solo goal sealed the win nine minutes after half-time.
However, according to Matt Law, it was the Spurs manager's tactics that ultimately were the key to victory at the home of football.
"I was very impressed with the way Pochettino set Tottenham up, he beat Sarri up on the day with his tactics," the Daily Telegraph's football news correspondent told the Sunday Supplement.
"Son was an interesting selection, they had an agreement with South Korea that he would not go on international duty in the last break, so he was one of their few top players who had not gone away.
Pochettino got everything right and Sarri got everything wrong
"So he played him and you could tell the energy he had as a lot of people may have expected Erik Lamela to start a game like that and that paid off.
"Harry Winks on the bench, Juan Foyth instead of Jan Vertonghen - he could have brought Vertonghen straight back. He put Alli on to Jorginho and almost man marked him at times and that just worked amazingly.
"They let the ball go out to N'Golo Kante a lot when Chelsea were attacking and it just kept breaking down as his distribution is probably his weak point and they pinpointed that.
"And I just thought Pochettino got everything right and Sarri got everything wrong."
Meanwhile, Saturday's dominant display also confirmed that the north London club - who are now just five points behind league leaders Manchester City - are really going places under Pochettino.
"Pochettino has completely changed the whole club, which is worth far more than winning a trophy," Law said, a view Oliver Holt agreed with.
"Tottenham were just superb and on a different level to Chelsea and this was a team that came into the game unbeaten," said the Mail on Sunday's chief sports writer.
"They seem to be going from strength to strength and that was probably the best Premier League performance I have seen this season."
