Jose Mourinho again proved himself to be the master tactician as he out-foxed Mauricio Pochettino with Chelsea beating Spurs 2-0 in the League Cup final at Wembley.
Much of the pre-match build-up had focussed on the suspension to Nemanja Matic forcing Mourinho to re-think his midfield strategy. With Mikel injured, Mourinho turned to Kurt Zouma to play the holding role in midfield, primarily to negate the attacking threat posed by Christian Eriksen. Spurs had torn Chelsea apart in a 5-3 win at White Hart Lane on New Year’s Day but there was to be no repeat on Sunday.
Deflected goals in either half from John Terry and Kyle Walker (own-goal) gave the Blues a relatively comfortable victory in the pouring rain. Eriksen did strike the Chelsea cross-bar from a free-kick early on while the only real threat from Harry Kane was intercepted by a superb tackle from John Terry. Chelsea had chances to increase their lead through Hazard and Fabregas while Diego Costa was a persistent thorn in the side of Tottenham’s defence.
The earlier defeat of Man City at Liverpool by two goals to one had set up a perfect weekend for Chelsea. Two brilliant strikes from Henderson and Coutinho proved sufficient to dent City’s title hopes as they remain five points adrift of Chelsea having played a game more. The defeat ended a miserable week for Manuel Pellegrini’s side who had been fortunate to escape with only a 2-1 defeat at home to Barcelona in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
City have been pushed out to 6-1 to win the Premiership and 66-1 to win the Champions League. Lionel Messi’s double-miss in the closing seconds has given City a slim hope of overturning the deficit in the return leg in a fortnight’s time but few expect them to do so.
Chelsea drew 1-1 in Paris against PSG and have the away goal advantage for the return leg. They will start that game as favourites but can expect a tough match against a very talented side. Paddy Power are offering odds of 8-1 against Chelsea going on to complete a treble of Capital One Cup, Premiership and Champions League. Their next fixture is a London derby at West Ham on Wednesday night while City should have little difficulty at home to Leicester. We will be previewing all of the midweek Premier League action on Betcirca.
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