Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino was delighted with the effort his players put in defeating nine-man Tottenham Hotspur in the London derby on Monday night in what was his first return to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium since 2019.
The Blues were made to work for this victory, even though they had a two-player advantage for over 35 minutes after Destiny Udogie and Cristian Romero both got sent off.
But they needed a 15-minute Nicholas Jackson hat-trick to defeat a dilapidated Spurs team away from home in a game that had VAR involved on multiple occasions.
“This is football. We won and deserved it. The technology is there, and we need to accept it. Many things happen on the pitch, and you need to verify and check,” Pochettino said this, while speaking to BBC Sport after the game.
“Look at the game between Tottenham and Liverpool here; Tottenham won in the last minute. I think we deserve the credit. Tottenham are doing fantastic, but tonight I think we were the better team.
“I think 4-1 in the end we deserved the victory and the three points, and it is really important because we have a really important game next with Manchester City.”
Cole Palmer scored the other Chelsea goal from the spot, which was an equalizer that cancelled out Dejan Kulusevski’s deflected early goal.
Apart from the five goals, four other goals were ruled out by VAR. Heung-min Son and Eric Dier scored for Spurs, while Raheem Sterling and Moises Caicedo found the back of the net for the Blues, but all were ruled out by VAR.
Chelsea could have won this game by more goals due to a high line that Spurs continued to play despite being two-men down. Pochettino was asked if he was surprised, his response;
“Look, when you are on the top of the table you can try everything. When the confidence is there you try it. If we try something like this then in every movement you concede. We are maybe in a different position and with space in behind we can maybe score more goals.”
This victory propelled Chelsea back to the top half as they now sit 10th with 15 points. They now have five days to prepare for their next game which will be against current log-leaders Manchester City at Stamford Bridge.
