PL: Ziyech stunner, Silva sink Spurs as Chelsea return to winning ways

Hakim Ziyech opened the scoring in style and Thiago Silva asserted Chelsea’s dominance as the Blues beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 at Stamford Bridge on Sunday for their first Premier Leage win in five games. 

Spurs came into the game having not lost in their last nine league outings since Antonio Conte took charge of the North London club. Another encouraging fact was Chelsea’s woeful form since December, having picked up just 8 points out of the 21 available that saw the European champions fall out of the title race. 

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Chelsea dominated the first half but failed to create decent openings and Spurs will feel hard done by after a Harry Kane goal was disallowed as the England striker was adjudged to have fouled Silva in the build-up. 

It took only two minutes into the second half for Ziyech to open the scoring, and the Moroccan winger found a bit of magic from his Ajax days that prompted Chelsea to pay £38 million to bring him to Stamford Bridge. 

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After being found 20 yards from goal on the right by Callum Hudson-Odoi, Ziyech cut in on his left and unleashed a curling, dipping effort that goalkeeper Hugo Lloris could only stand and watch fizz into the top corner. 

“How good was the goal? I think it was 10 out of 10!” Ziyech said in his post-match comments. “I thought maybe I hit it a lttle bit hard, but in the end I saw it go in.”

Eight minutes later, Silva was afforded an abundance of space to nod in Mason Mount’s freekick to double the hosts’ advantage.  

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It’s now 33 wins for Chelsea against Tottenham in the Premier League era — more than against any other opponent. Not since 2018 has a Tottenham player even scored against Chelsea in the league when the north London side last won this derby.

“Over the last couple of weeks we haven’t had the results we wanted,” Mount said. “So you start looking around you and teams are creeping up, teams have more games than us. 

“So then we start getting in a difficult position. So today was a massive game, with Tottenham coming up on us and having games on us to get three points was massive for us.”