Nuno highlights the ‘one positive’ in Spurs’ defeat to Chelsea

Tottenham head coach Nuno Espirito Santo believes there was ‘only one positive’ during his side’s defeat to Chelsea.

Spurs suffered their second consecutive 3-0 defeat in the Premier League, despite opening the season with three top flight wins on the bounce.

Thomas Tuchel’s side took advantage of a passive second half performance from the hosts, with goals from Thiago Silva, N’Golo Kante and Antonio Rudiger sealing the points for the Blues.

Spurs failed to capitalise on what was a promising first half, though, with Nuno’s tactics and elected style of play catching Chelsea out cold.

The home side pressed the visitors and unsettled their rhythm, in what was a more positive display after the performances against Crystal Palace and Rennes in midweek.

But Spurs reverted to the mean in the second half and and essentially allowed Chelsea to dominate possession, with Nuno’s side struggling to generate much going forward.

Although it was a drab second 45 minutes from the hosts, Nuno believes his side should take the positive first half performance and build on it going forward.

He told Football.London: “We had to find solutions. Since the beginning this is our focus – to find solutions that can help the players to perform. To find partnerships. We started one way at the beginning of the season because those were the players available to build on.

“The international break came and we had problems. Now, I honestly believe the first half was really good, really good. The energy that we put on the pitch – the attitude, the spirit the players had. So if there’s only one positive today, that was the first half.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It wasn’t the response that Spurs fans had in mind after the last couple of performances. The first half was good, but Spurs really needed to come away with a goal to show for it. It’s alarming how passive Spurs were after half-time, though, and hopefully Nuno can get them focusing on building on the opening 45 minutes.

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