**_LONDON_**: Chelsea, not Arsenal, have emerged as London’s most serious Premier League title challengers. They demonstrated their growing confidence, spirit and style with an impressive recovery from two goals down to win 4-3 at Tottenham.
Two penalties from Cole Palmer lifted Enzo Maresca’s men within four points of Liverpool and two clear of third-placed Arsenal. The leaders’ Merseyside derby at Everton had been postponed because of bad weather while the Gunners could only draw their own London derby at Fulham.
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou had been jeered by his own fans during the midweek defeat at Bournemouth. He responded by rushing back Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero into central defence. The surprise return of both men after injury was a gamble which failed.
Last season’s duel had seen Spurs score first before losing 4-1 and the first slice of history repeated itself when Dominic Solanke struck in the fifth minute. Marc Cucurella slipped on the wet turf so Brennan Johnson could seize possession and cross for Solanke to beat Levi Colwill’s challenge. It was the quickest Premier goal Spurs had ever scored against Chelsea.
Five minutes later, Cucurella slipped again and Spurs scored again. Johnson Dejan Kulusevski capitalised to run square across the Chelsea defence before squeezing a left-foot shot back inside goalkeeper Robert Sanchez’s left-hand post. Cucurella immediately ran to the touchline to change his boots. Almost simultaneously Spurs’ delight was tempered by the injury loss of Romero.
Now Cucurella started to make amends for his mistakes. He found Jadon Sancho in space and the ex-Dortmund winger cut in from the left to shoot home from 25metres. Tottenham have kept only one clean sheet in their last 23 Premier home games.
A less tolerant referee than Anthony Taylor might have shown red cards to both Moises Caicedo for a loose hack at Sarr and Kulusevski for a flying elbow. Caicedo had been struggling at rightback so manager Enzo Maresca switched him into midfield at halftime with Malo Gusto joining the defence.
The switch proved decisive. Chelsea took over with Palmer at the heart of it and underlining his current status as best player in the league. He converted his 11th and 12th Premier League spotkicks in 12 attempts either side of setting up the third Chelsea goal for Fernandez.
Son scored Spurs’ third but only in stoppage time, much too late to ease the growing pressure on Postecoglou.
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