Chelsea vs Spurs ends in scenes no one (except all the fans) wants to see

Chelsea vs Spurs featured plenty of arguments, a very late equalizer and two managerial red cards. Everything we "don't want to see", so, huh?

Well, it took us a few weekends to get there, but we finally got there.

At Stamford Bridge, a combination of heat, competition and a centuries-old rivalry resulted in the Premier League's first truly explosive game of the season, with Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte ending their days with a red card each at the end of an afternoon of drama, bad humor and atrocious refereeing.

There was a curious contrast between the two teams as they entered the pitch. The home side did it with three of their summer signings present and correct. But for the second game in a row, Antonio Conte has named a Spurs squad made up of the same players he had at his disposal last season.

It's a curiosity, despite all the talk about Spurs having had a 'successful' transfer window, that Conte chose to do so. It's easy to interpret something like this as a baller movement, a flex with the implication that the best is yet to come.

Spurs finished the first weekend of the Premier League on top after an unusual but still successful opening day victory over Southampton. There was a lot to admire in their performance: recovering quickly after conceding an early goal; scoring four of their own and none of them coming from Son Heung-min or Harry Kane; and the exceptional performance of Dejan Kulusevski.

But at the same time, there were question marks. A familiar lack of focus had led them to concede first and, well, it was all happening against a side as defensively suspect as Southampton.

It was also notable that Spurs created everything from the wings with little passing through the middle. What could happen against a team pushing harder on that part of the pitch?

For Chelsea, the first home game of the season really marked the start of a new era for the club. Roman Abramovich is now a slowly fading memory, but Todd Boehly can hardly be said to have been sparing with the club's purse strings. While their 1-0 win at Everton on the opening weekend was enough, but a bit more, they will only get better as their new team continues to take shape.

There is still a huge question mark on the front. They still haven't replaced Romelu Lukaku and have now sold Timo Werner to RB Leipzig. And although Raheem Sterling is a terrific player, he hasn't been a great goal scorer throughout his career so far.

Will Chelsea still try to opt for this 20-season striker or do they intend to try to style 2022/23 with a false nine or similar, perhaps while waiting for the good player is available?

Of course, the question becomes a little less relevant when you have a defender who can absolutely get the ball past a static keeper like Kalidou Koulibaly did after 19 minutes. He has never been prolific, has Koulibaly. His previous 14 seasons as a professional had scored just 20 goals in all competitions, out of 474 games. But on this occasion he swung his foot through the ball, leaving Hugo Lloris statuesque as he struck the back of the net.

It may have been a once-in-a-lifetime moment for this particular player, but Koulibaly's goal was nothing less than what Chelsea deserved for a pressing opener. After a brilliant opening four or five minutes, Spurs' presence in central midfield was negligible to say the least, with high pressure from Chelsea's midfield leaving the back half of Spurs' double pivot looking more like a full-back. a pantomime cow than a part of a sophisticated machine of any kind.

Chelsea were quicker on the ball, and a combination of that and the apparent frustration of several Spurs players at having so little themselves led to possession and reckless fouls being unnecessarily conceded.

Mason Mount drifted between their midfield positions as if running between cones on the training ground.

And that quality ran through the entire Chelsea squad in the first half. Marc Cucurella's performance was such that Ben Chilwell was perhaps watching her through the gaps between her fingers. N'Golo Kante played as if his injury spell was a collective hallucination that we all experienced and it was actually still the final stages of the 2016/17 season.

Neither Kane nor Son had a touch of consequence between them – Son in particular was marked as irrelevant by Reece James – and Spurs broke just once: Ryan Sessegnon chasing down the left channel while Stamford Bridge held back his breath for a nev flag...