Chelsea 2-0 Tottenham Hotspur (May 3, 2024) Match Analysis –

Tottenham’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League are getting slimmer by the day.

By losing 2-0 to Chelsea on Thursday, Tottenham suffered a second defeat to a London rival in the space of four days in the Premier League, following a 3-2 home defeat to Arsenal in the North London derby. London on Sunday.

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Among those defeats came confirmation that England will have just four places in next season’s expanded Champions League, not five, with Italy and Germany already securing the extra places in next season’s expanded competition.

That is another blow for Spurs, who are fifth and remain seven points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa with a game in hand. They still have to play Liverpool and Manchester City in their remaining four games, so it looks increasingly unlikely that they will close the gap on Villa.

Header goals from Trevoh Chalobah in the 24th and Nicolas Jackson in the 72nd were enough for Chelsea, who could still save a place in one of Europe’s second or third division competitions from what has been a disappointing Premier League campaign. League for a reunited team. at a cost of more than a billion dollars.

Chelsea leapfrogged West Ham into eighth place, two points behind Newcastle and three behind Manchester United in sixth place. Two of those three teams are likely to play in the Europa League or Europa Conference League next season.

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Tottenham have won just one of their last 34 away league games against Chelsea, making it one of the most one-sided fixtures in the top flight. The only victory came in 2018, when Mauricio Pochettino, the current Chelsea manager, was in charge of Spurs.

“We are in a good place,” Pochettino told the BBC. “We have incredible professionals working on set pieces. The team really showed the way we wanted to build this way of playing.”

He described the first part as fantastic. “Then you have to hold back and suffer.”

Chalobah took advantage of a free kick from Conor Gallagher to head it over Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario and into the net to give Chelsea the lead. It was another goal conceded from a set piece by Spurs and that is becoming a recurring problem under manager Ange Postecoglou.

Jackson, who had a shot partially saved by Vicario and subsequently cleared off the line by Micky van de Ven in the first half, finally got his goal when he was quicker to react after Cole Palmer’s free kick bounced off the crossbar. Jackson did well to head the ball over two Tottenham defenders retreating towards their own goal line.

Tottenham’s Australian coach, Ange Postecoglou, was furious on the bench for the first 45 minutes and his team came out of the second half with greater vigor and determination, but to no avail.

“I feel like we’ve lost a bit of faith and conviction in our football and it’s up to me to change that,” he told Sky Sports. “We weren’t good enough. That’s on me.”

Tottenham are six points ahead of Man United and could have to settle for fifth place, which would earn them a place in next season’s Europa League.