Chris Hughton deserves plaudits, Sam Allardyce will not win Everton fans’ affections and Spurs look ready for Juventus
There is something striking about watching the defending champions cede their title to their successors, and this was a particularly mournful way to go about it. The last time a title-winning Chelsea team visited the side that was destined to succeed them they lost 2-1 to Leicester in December 2015 and promptly sacked their manager. This display is unlikely to accelerate Antonio Conte’s apparently inevitable summer departure, but a performance so stripped of ambition and attacking quality certainly reflected poorly on him. “My tactic was: don’t concede space between the lines,” he said. “If you concede space at Manchester City you risk losing with many goals down.” Aggressively stripping the team of the personnel and instructions necessary to effectively attack hardly affected Chelsea’s chances of avoiding defeat, it simply limited their losing margin. What Conte failed to see is that for a team of Chelsea’s recent history, ambition and resources an emphatic thrashing is not the only form of humiliation. Simon Burnton
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