Tottenham v Chelsea: One big game, five big questions

Chelsea have lost four of their last five Premier League matches, in the process seeing their gap to Tottenham Hotspur cut from 12 points to three. Jose Mourinho could hardly have asked for a better start, and could hardly have asked for this fixture to come up at a better time. Spurs have all the momentum – plus the tactical battle plan to move into the top four before Christmas.

And Mourinho revels in games like these; the blockbuster occasions with Sky Sports montages hamming up the significance of toppling his former club, of reasserting his place in English football as an anti-hero with creativity-destroying tactics.

But Tottenham still have major flaws, and there is every chance Frank Lampard can emerge victorious if he successfully sees this one descend into chaos.

1) Will Mourinho follow the Everton template by sitting off Chelsea?

Mourinho might be planning to play more expansive football as Tottenham manager but he is a pragmatist first and foremost, and the most pragmatic way to beat Chelsea right now is to sit back and absorb pressure. Bournemouth, Everton, and West Ham have all beaten Lampard’s side by tweaking the tactical approach used by opponents throughout the first third of the season.

The problem with Lampard’s Chelsea is they are given genuine creative freedom, as opposed to being coached specific attacking patterns. Having to use your imagination becomes problematic when confidence is low, and it means attacks aren’t built several moves ahead with specific designs to pull a defence out of shape. Chelsea are too individualistic, which becomes pretty easy to defend once you’ve worked out which spaces to shut down.

Earlier in the season teams were pushing high or dropping into their own third. Either one allows Mason Mount and Chelsea’s inverted wingers to get on the ball in the number ten space. But West Ham, Everton, and Bournemouth plonked themselves in a midblock, essentially surrounding the number ten area of the pitch. Mount, Christian Pulisic, and N’Golo Kante were all suffocated as Chelsea’s centre-backs – given all the time in the world – hesitated on the ball.

Mourinho will copy this approach. It should frustrate the visitors.

2) Can Spurs counter-attack through Chelsea’s decompressed midfield?

It was Mourinho himself who first noticed the problem with Lampard’s tactics. After Chelsea’s 4-0 defeat to Manchester United on the opening weekend he sat in the Sky Sports studio and opened his palm, then made a fist, to illustrate the importance of compression in the transitions. It’s safe to say he will have a plan for how to capitalise on Chelsea’s persistent issues recompressing as counter-attacks develop.

Again, it comes down to the freedom Lampard affords his players. During attacks, they fan out across the width of the pitch rather than screen their own possession in order to engage an ordered counter-press. Too often their midfield has emptied as players search for space in wider areas, allowing opponents to counter at speed straight through the middle of the park.

Tottenham’s counters under Mourinho are really coming together. Lucas Moura, Dele Alli, and Heung-Min Son are revelling in the new system. Spurs should be able to sit back and wait for the chance to pounce.

3) Do Tottenham’s full-backs offer Chelsea the chance to make this end to end?

But that won’t necessarily be the tactical pattern of this match, even if it is the most obvious and most likely. It is plausible that Spurs’ teething problems at the back will accidentally afford Chelsea too much room down the flanks, turning this into an end-to-end battle that will no doubt suit the visitors. Mourinho demands control; Lampard is happy with chaos.

Ben Davies’ injury has further destabilised Spurs. Their 3-2-5 in possession continually leaves big gaps on both flanks – as Olympiacos, West Ham, and Wolves have all shown – with Serge Aurier in particular caught too far ahead of the ball. The back three can become overwhelmed, largely because Mourinho’s central midfielders cannot get across in time to offer support.

Consequently when Spurs’ counter-attacks break down, Willian and Christian Pulisic could find themselves in a lot of space on the outside of Mourinho’s 3-2 defensive block. That would lead to a stretched game, and Mourinho teams don’t do so well when that happens.

4) Or will Lampard’s three-man midfield create a mismatch against Dier?

There is another way this game could defy the easier narrative of Spurs suffocating Chelsea and breaking to victory. Lampard will no doubt go for a flat 4-3-3 rather than a 4-2-3-1 to solidify midfield, so perhaps Chelsea’s simple numerical advantage in midfield will give them the chance to build carefully into the Tottenham penalty area, particularly around the flat-footed Eric Dier.

Mourinho keeps changing his midfield two, betraying a lack of faith in the options currently available to him. The triangle of Pulisic, Mount, and Tammy Abraham to the left of centre is definitely Chelsea’s best creative route to goal, as shown in the Everton defeat when, for a brief period in the second half, Mount came deeper to receive the ball and Everton’s defensive wall began to give way.

Dier (like Morgan Schneiderlin at Goodison Park) isn’t good enough to cope should Chelsea manage to find a high tempo, and we all know how error-prone Aurier can be.

5) Can Lucas & Kane dance through the clumsy left half of the Chelsea defence?

There isn’t a clear pattern to the goals Chelsea have conceded in their last five league games, except for Kurt Zouma and generally clumsy defending often being to blame – whether it be crosses coming in from the flanks, goalmouth scrambles from corners, or attackers dancing through the middle. Antonio Rudiger’s return from injury was supposed to help, but the amount of space Dan Gosling had to score the winner last time out suggests otherwise.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Mourinho’s tactical strategy so far at Spurs is Lucas’s position in the right half-space – the gap between opposition left-back and left centre-back. The Brazilian rarely moves wider or narrower than that one spot. He links well with Kane from here, pulls players out of the ten space as Dele floats into it, and acts like a five-a-side pitch wall for Aurier to play one-twos as he drives down the right.

It could be a key area given how clumsy Zouma and Emerson have been this season. Both are vulnerable to getting skinned or simply losing sight of the ball, as seen in Everton’s two scrambled goals at Goodison Park.

Alex Keble is on Twitter.