Enzo Maresca again played down suggestions Chelsea were in the title race despite cutting Liverpool’s lead at the Premier League summit to four points after a rip-roaring comeback win at Tottenham.
Second-placed Blues started poorly in north London and trailed 2-0 after 11 minutes with Spurs able to capitalise on two slips by Marc Cucurella to score through Dominic Solanke and Dejan Kulusevski.
Jadon Sancho reduced the deficit soon after and they were fortunate midfielder Moises Caicedo escaped a red card for a shin-high tackle on Pape Sarr, which proved crucial as Caicedo was carelessly hacked down at the start of the second period by Yves Bissouma to give the visitors a penalty.
Cole Palmer tucked away the spot-kick just past the hour mark before he brilliantly created space to deliver a deflected cross for Enzo Fernandez to lash in the visitors’ third in the 73rd minute.
There was still time for Palmer to win another penalty and convert with a panenka with six minutes left for his 12th goal of the campaign.
Spurs captain Son Heung-min did pull one back in stoppage time, but Chelsea held on to triumph 4-3 and earn a ninth league win in 15 under Maresca to move clear of Arsenal and Manchester City as Liverpool’s nearest challengers.
“After the game, my message to the players was to be focused,” Maresca said.
“To be focused in the day-by-day, in our session, in the next game on Thursday then Sunday, because if you start to think in two games, three games or in four games where we are? It’s completely wrong.
“The main focus has to be enjoy the day off, with family or friends, but when they come back go again 100 per cent, train well, go for the game and no more than that.
“We are happy that our fans are happy. They can dream, they can think everything because on the outside it is quite clear, also inside, the reality is that I said many times for me we are not ready to be there, but the important thing is we improve day by day.”
Even though Maresca was content to downplay Chelsea’s league championship aspirations, he acknowledged the ingredients of this result showed the strong mentality of the youngest squad in the Premier League.
“This for sure is an important win,” the Italian added. “First of all for the way that it arrives because to come into this stadium, against this team and to concede two goals but to continue with the same plan on the ball, off the ball, it show how the players are in this moment mentally strong. This is important.
“Since we start, we are trying to work the way we want to play on and off the ball, but also we are trying to work in terms of mentality and togetherness.
“To come into this season to think you are going to win or compete without suffer or without some bad moments is impossible. We were ready for that.
“It is probably too much after 15 minutes to give away two goals but it is the perfect win probably because of this.”
Spurs’ problems under Ange Postecoglou showed no sign of going away as they suffered back-to-back league defeats to drop to 11th in the table.
Cristian Romero’s comeback lasted only 15 minutes and Brennan Johnson and Micky van de Ven were also forced off in the second half.
A crucial moment occurred midway through the first half when Caicedo caught Sarr on the shin, but Anthony Taylor only awarded a foul and a quick VAR review agreed with that decision.
“There’s a couple of decisions I thought today that definitely went against us,” Postecoglou said.
“It almost feels like no-one is in control because everybody is scared to make a decision to overturn somebody else.
“Referees are scared to make decisions in case they get it wrong, VAR don’t want to intervene and I get that because you don’t want disruptions to the game. You just have to cop out.
“We worked awfully hard, but to give away two goals and you give away two penalties unnecessarily against a quality side anyway, you make things very difficult for yourself.”
