Nicolas Jackson scored a hat-trick as Chelsea recorded our biggest league victory at Tottenham since the legendary 6-1 in 1997, but that fact barely scratches the surface of a remarkable game of football.
Where to start! Dejan Kulusevski put Spurs in front early on but by half-time we were level and holding a man advantage. Destiny Udogie and Cristian Romero had already been fortunate to escape straight red cards for challenges on Raheem Sterling and Levi Colwill when VAR recommended Romero be shown his marching orders for a horror tackle inside the box. Cole Palmer scored the penalty.
Sterling (handball), Moises Caicedo and Jackson (both offside) all had goals disallowed during a barely comprehensible opening 45 – well, 57 – minutes, in which it felt like a key decision was being made every 30 seconds.
Spurs lost two players to injury in first-half added time and another to a red card early in the second period, Udogie shown a second yellow. We had to be patient before breaking down the nine-man dam, Jackson netting from close range with 75 minutes on the clock.
The drama wasn’t done as Spurs had a goal of their own disallowed for offside and then nearly equalised on two further occasions. But Jackson made sure he had the final word, scoring two more goals in stoppage time as we made the most of the hosts’ high line. It was a suitably eventful ending to a wild London derby.
