Tottenham Hotspur's Undefeated Record Ends in Chaotic Loss to Chelsea

The English Premier League's only undefeated record was lost along with the heads of Tottenham Hotspur players.

In a chaotic London derby on Monday that saw five goals disallowed, two red cards for Tottenham defenders Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie, and a daring tactical move by Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou in his unlikely attempt to survive with nine men, Nicolas Jackson's late hat-trick sealed a 4-1 victory for Chelsea.

After Romero and Udogie were sent off in the 33rd and 55th minutes, respectively, the hosts played a high defensive line and managed to survive for a while until Jackson's three goals in the 75th minute broke through their resistance.

"It is difficult to comprehend," Postecoglou said. "The game just seemed to get out of control, making it nearly impossible to analyze."

After Dejan Kulusevski gave Tottenham the lead with a deflected shot in the sixth minute, the rivalry erupted into a furious match full of absurd occurrences and reckless challenges.

Romero gave away a penalty and received his fourth red card in two and a half years at Tottenham for a risky challenge on Argentina teammate Enzo Fernandez. In the middle of all the chaos, Cole Palmer equalized from the spot.

Furthermore, Tottenham had an uphill task to maintain their perfect start to the season when Udogie received a second yellow card.

Chelsea finally succeeded in breaking through Tottenham's valiant, if somewhat naïve, high line, but not before doing so with terrible results. On his return to the team he managed from 2014 to 2019, Jackson's last two goals deep into stoppage time sealed a thrilling victory and sent the team to the Champions League final.

With his squad down to nine players, Postecoglou had no misgivings about his strategy, stating that "it is just who we are."

After 11 games in which the other two clubs in the top four, Liverpool and Arsenal, both lost, it left reigning champion Manchester City one point ahead of second-place Tottenham.

Especially the first half was chaos.

Apart from the two goals and Romero's red card, there were four goals that were disallowed, James Maddison and Micky van de Ven of Tottenham suffered game-ending injuries, Postecoglou and Udogie received yellow cards for complaining and for a two-footed lunge, respectively, a free-for-all that was started by a scuffle between Pape Sarr of Tottenham and Levi Colwill of Chelsea, and 12 minutes of stoppage time.

Romero also escaped punishment when he kicked Colwill off the ball, but a few minutes later, the World Cup champion turned red. In his tenure at Spurs, he has received 26 yellow cards in addition to the four red ones.

The match brought up memories of the infamous "Battle of the Bridge" between the two clubs at the conclusion of the 2015–16 campaign, when Tottenham's dreams of winning the championship had vanished at Stamford Bridge.