It Was A Clever Game,David Luiz On Chelsea Win Over Tottenham

David Luiz cast his mind back a week as he considered the reasons for Chelsea victory against Tottenham, and specifically his role
in it.

The Brazilian was deployed in central midfield alongside N’Golo Kante and debutant Tiemoue Bakayoko. It was his first selection in that role since his return to Stamford Bridge last summer, and he produced a mighty performance to help stifle Tottenham’s attacking intent.

‘I found out I was playing there at the beginning of the week,’ he revealed afterwards. ‘The boss was trying to make the best plan to play this game, and then I was trying to do my job.’

And what was that?

‘To run! I was running a lot. I had to cover the space of fantastic players like Eriksen and Dele Alli.

‘They always play very well between the lines so I was trying to close this gap and not leave space for them to create. I tried to do my best and it was good because we won in the end.’

That owed much to the resilience of the team who showed what Antonio Conte described as ‘great desire, great spirit, great will, and great heart.’ Not many had tipped the Blues to win before kick-off but that’s exactly what we did courtesy of Marcos Alonso’s two goals.

‘The victory started in the second half of the first game against Burnley, because we did great then,’ David Luiz pointed out.

‘It’s important to show character after a defeat. We had a great mentality, and great character especially as we didn’t start the league very well last week. Playing against a fantastic team, fantastic players, we deserved to win.

‘It was a clever game. You need to understand when you play against a very good team, sometimes you can keep more of the ball but sometimes you need to try to surprise them on the counter-attack with one touch. I think we did great in a clever way.’