Premier League - Spurs hold Chelsea in epic match

Tottenham put a dent in Chelsea’s title hopes by holding their London rivals to a 4-4 draw at White Hart Lane.

In a game which will surely go down as one of the best to be played in the Premier League, Spurs trailed 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3 but somehow fought back to claim an improbable point thanks to Keane’s brilliant curling effort from 25 yards out.

It was Chelsea, though, who got off the a flying start after three minutes when Didier Drogba headed past Paul Robinson following John Terry’s cross.

Avram Grant’s side thought they had doubled their lead almost immediately as Joe Cole struck after Robinson had parried Drogba’s long range shot but the flag was up for offside.

Almost out of nowhere Spurs levellled on 12 minutes through Carling Cup hero Jonathan Woodgate when the defender rose expertly to power a header past Carlo Cudicini.

But just seven minutes later Chelsea were back in front when man-of-the-match Joe Cole showed great skill to beat two men before threading a throughball into the path of Michael Essien who finished with aplomb from 12 yards out.

Chelsea were looking comfortable but the game boiled over on the stroke of half-time when Ashley Cole caught Scotland international Alan Hutton with a high and dangerous tackle for which he was lucky to only be shown a yellow card.

Chelsea started the second-half strongly and looked to have made the game secure on 52 as Joe Cole shrugged off the challenge of Pascal Chimbonda before his shot looped up and into the back of the net off the unfortunate Robinson.

But their two-goal advantage lasted just nine minutes as once again they failed to deal with a corner, allowing Dimitar Berbatov to direct an excellent effort into the top corner.

Tom Huddlestone then levelled matters with 15 minutes remaining.

The substitute picked up the ball 12 yards out at an angle on the right side of the Chelsea box and lashed a left-footed effort past Cudicini into the corner.

Spurs looked to be in the ascendancy but the magnificent Joe Cole scored his second and Chelsea’s fourth on 80 minutes, spinning past Pascal Chimbonda and driving the ball into the roof of the net from 12 yards.

Just when Chelsea thought Spurs had ran out of ideas, up popped Keane with a stunning curling effort.

Ricardo Carvalho turned his back on a high ball which hit him and fell into the path of Keane and the Irishman struck what could be a killer blow to Chelsea’s title hopes.

Dimitar Berbatov almost won the points for Spurs in injury-time but a superb right-handed save from Cudicini denied the Bulgarian his second.

TeamTalk / Eurosport

RSS TrackBack URL

Translate: