The Warm-Up: Chelsea conquer Spurs at Wembley, Neymar makes our knees go trembly
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Updated 21/08/2017 at 08:07 GMT
Tottenham's run of 19 Wembley cup finals this season began with banging their heads against a blue wall, plus other weekend bits and bobs...
Antonio Conte, Manager of Chelsea celebrates victory after the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea at Wembley Stadium on August 20, 2017 in London, England.
Image credit: Eurosport
MONDAY’S BIG STORIES
Chelsea ease the season’s first mini-crisis
One of the big hopes this season – in fact, of any season – is that we’ll get a multi-pronged title race that keeps us guessing all the way to May. Whether it’s even mathematically possible for the now-established Big Five to all stay in the hunt while keeping standards sky-high is questionable, but one thing is certain: it means a high-stakes showdown almost on a weekly basis.
The first of those was as compelling on paper as any other. Two clubs with very different summers to endure, but with a common work ethic once they get on the pitch. And this, for the first time in Premier League history, was the Wembley pitch; mythologised for its energy-sapping qualities, its specifications were now no different to any other.
Some said it felt like a Cup final; it was more like a semi-final: tense, with the latent sense that a mistake was right around the corner. If every Spurs home game is going to be like that, it’ll be as exhausting a season for their fans as it will the players.
In an awkward nutshell, Spurs thrashed Chelsea 1-2. Set piece after set piece swung its way through Thibaut Courtois’ penalty area before and after Marcos Alonso’s own dead-ball magic had edged Antonio Conte’s untested XI into a precious lead. Michy Batshuayi’s own goal was an unexpected way for the dam to finally break, but it felt like a deserved slice of Spurs fortune.
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Marcos Alonso was Chelsea's hero at Wembley
Image credit: PA Sport
A point apiece would have kept both sides’ respective issues in stasis: Tottenham’s Wembley-shaped mental block and Chelsea’s under-resourced start to the season. In the end, Alonso still had the legs to gallop down the left and fire underneath Hugo Lloris.
Conte flung himself into his nearest assistant, while Mauricio Pochettino was left to give some seriously short shrift to questions about Spurs’ home discomforts. For the neutrals, meanwhile, this was a promising start to what should be a season-full of showdowns.
Immaculate Manchester United pass another simple test
Before Chelsea went from bust to boom in the space of 90 frantic Wembley minutes, Jose Mourinho’s rebuilt Manchester United further underlined the tiny sample size of this nascent Premier League season by cruising to another 4-0 victory against a team who’d simply run out of ideas.
Unlike against the hapless West Ham last weekend, though, Swansea did manage more than a semblance of resistance. Three goals in the final 10 minutes may have added a gloss to a job well done for United, but goals and gloss are precisely what they needed.
The rather baseless conclusions about the ramifications of Nemanja Matic’s move – for either Chelsea or United – should perhaps wait for when a true rival is put in front of them. For better or worse, that doesn’t happen until mid October and a trip to Anfield. Until then, Mourinho will be content for United to go through their swaggering motions.
Neymar, for god’s sake
Barely three hours into life as a £198m footballer, Neymar has already generated enough footage for several dozen Neymar • Skills, Goals, Assists | 2017/18 | HD YouTube videos.
It may be worth putting aside any grouchy reservations about just how Modern Footbally this all is and enjoy the spectacle of an otherworldly talent operating in some highly favourable conditions. He – and the history-hungry Paris Saint-Germain – will surely, eventually, meet their match on the European stage; for now, footballing circus acts like the 6-2 win over Toulouse are a satisfying novelty.
Neymar scored twice (one of them too ridiculous for words) and laid on two more (again, one of them impossible to do justice within these humble brackets). Project Ballon d’Or is off to an emphatic start.
IN OTHER NEWS
Let’s just skip straight to the end, shall we?
A previous version of this story included an image of Lukas Podolski on a jet ski. This image appeared as an illustration of a person on a jet ski. Breitbart London wishes to apologise to Mr. Podolski. There is no evidence Mr. Podolski is either a migrant gang member, nor being human trafficked.
Yes, this was far-right website Breitbart being forced to apologise after mistaking Lukas Podolski for a drug-trafficking jet-ski migrant.
Who said the Fake News era had to be so serious all the time?
HEROES AND ZEROS
Heroes: Huddersfield hit the early heights
If there was some sort of textbook for promoted sides who have made a promising start to Premier League life, Huddersfield manager David Wagner sounded like he’d been up all night memorising it.
“I always say that to the players and now we are the living proof,” Wagner earnestly said after the defeat of Newcastle on Sunday. “I did not expect to be here but we must not forget that while we have had two great results we are still only two games into the season. All we want to do is to be brave in every single game and we have done that so far.”
Expectation management becomes the key skill when the relegation favourites dare to take six points from six. Aaron Mooy’s winner had undoubted, cast-iron Premier League quality about it, but far sterner tests await than the motivation vacuum of Newcastle.
Zeros: Arsenal
When you’re on the end of some excruciating banter from Staffordshire Police’s official Twitter account, you know it’s been a bad day.
Stoke v Arsenal is a fixture that sits firmly in a footballing pigeon-hole, but only one team were propogating the same old habits. The hosts, still keen to make the Bet365 an uncomfortable place to visit, have something a little more sophisticated about them these days.
The on-loan Jese – yet another Champions League winner plying his trade in the Potteries – earned a well-deserved standing ovation for his direct, purposeful debut, one that he crowned with a winning goal after a decisive finish beyond Petr Cech.
“Let’s not go overboard,” Arsene Wenger sighed afterwards. “We lost one game. I can understand that [disappointment] but overall I believe there were a lot of positives in the game as well because we created many chances. We had great domination and unfortunately we dropped three points.”
With Chelsea apparently back on track, Premier League dynamic dictates that it’s Wenger’s side who are now forced into some midweek introspection. And who does that better than Arsenal?
HAT TIP
Walters pauses, letting the emotion flow out, then standing up. ‘Let me open the window for a minute,’ he says. ‘It hits me. No one ever gets to see this side of me, ever, only my wife Jo. We all have a wall, don’t we?’
Burnley’s Jon Walters – firmly established as the Premier League player you’d probably choose to help you change a tyre in the rain – gave a candid interview to Henry Winter and the Times. You should read it.
RETRO CORNER
On this day in 2004, some pure, triple-distilled Andriy Shevchenko: a perfect hat-trick for Milan against Lazio in the Supercoppa Italiana.
COMING UP
An expensively-assembled belter in store at the Etihad: Manchester City welcome Everton to town, a fixture that just doesn’t look very nil-nilly.
Tomorrow’s edition will be brought to you by Nick Miller, who is looking to maintain his 100% start to the season
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