Tottenham hotheads play into Chelsea’s hands as VAR gets all the big calls correct

Chelsea fans will be brought back to earth with a bump on Sunday when their team try to snake their way up the league table by beating Premier League leaders Manchester City at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea’s reasonable away form is in stark contrast  to their home one, where they have only beaten Luton Town in the top flight, writes Paul Lagan.

Just what the fans expect in terms of performance is open to debate. Many will be buoyed by the 4-1 win at Tottenham on Monday night, others will lament the home defeats to Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Brentford as proof that another defeat is on the cards.

Others, probably most, will simply shrug their shoulders, and just go along with the ride, not knowing what to expect.

It’s tough to look at the almost surreal encounter at ‘Three Point Lane’ where five goals were disallowed – three for the Blues – countless niggling fouls, some absolutely horror tackling by the north Londoners, with a couple of red cards for them as a consequence.

VAR was employed nine times and frankly got the decisions right on all of them.

Had VAR not been employed and referee Michael Oliver’s decisions allowed to stand, then it is quite possible a different score could have occurred – with Spurs even taking the spoils.

Cole Palmer would not have got the penalty and scored the equaliser because Nicolas Jackson was called offside by the linesman.

The fact  is VAR looked at it, and saw he was offside. But in the build-up play Cristian Romero had hacked at Enzo Fernandes in the penalty area, and thus, while the goal was ruled out, a penalty was correctly given and a red card brandished to Romero.

There was quite a lot for VAR to unpack in this instance and it took eight minutes to come to a decision.

Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou, while not being critical of the decisions, whinged about the time it took to get to them.

As a distraction technique to protect his players from media scrutiny, it was too obvious to take seriously.

Do fans want to see the game left in the hands of the referee and lino, who by human nature can get decisions wrong or simply don’t see any misdemeanours?

For as long as TV has shown matches, they have always highlighted the human errors of referees.

No, VAR is in town and decisions like the Palmer penalty show its value and that it will rightly remain.

Chelsea benefited from the ill-discipline shown by Spurs who were tense from the start and lost their senses too often.

While this is not Chelsea’s fault, it can’t disguise the fact that the Blues could have been legitimately two goals down in the opening 15 minutes when they were frankly dreadful.

Manchester City will not be as ill-disciplined as Spurs, and so which Chelsea will show up for the late-kick-off on Sunday?

Dunno.

There were no injuries to concern head coach Mauricio Pochettino, which is a rarity this season.

Skipper Reece James will start but not last the 90 minutes as he builds up to full match fitness.

Up front Nicolas Jackson should be full of confidence after his three-goal haul on Monday.

PICTURE: PA