After Chelsea’s path to the Premier League title was cleared, Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was left frustrated, bewildered and hurt.
Without a title since 1961, Tottenham had fought so hard to trim Chelsea’s lead in recent weeks but on Friday squandered the opportunity to slash it to a single point. A 1-0 loss against West Ham United enables Chelsea to secure the trophy before Tottenham even play again.
The collapse at the Olympic Stadium was out of character for the current crop of Tottenham players.
Photo: Reuters
A team who invigorated the title race with daring, attacking play, suddenly ran out of ideas in the London derby.
A nine-match winning run — Tottenham’s longest since their previous title-winning season in 1960-1961 — came to an end meekly to leave the team four points behind Chelsea.
“The right question to ask ourselves is: ‘Are we capable to increase, especially in the moments under pressure all together in a big game, the level?’” Lloris said. “The way we played football was so excellent [this season], that’s why it’s even more frustrating today [Friday], because I didn’t recognize Tottenham. So it hurts even more today.”
It was only Tottenham’s fourth loss in 35 games this campaign, but the other setbacks came against more illustrious opposition: Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.
Chelsea have four games remaining — one more than Tottenham — and will capture their second title in three seasons by beating Middlesbrough tomorrow and West Bromwich Albion on Friday.
Tottenham’s task now is holding on for their highest finish in 54 years in the remaining three games.
“To win a league, to win a trophy, there are key moments,” Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino said. “And today was a key moment... It’s not about always playing well or badly, it’s not about running more or less, it’s about when you must win you win.”
In the early game yesterday, Manchester City strengthened their Premier League top-four aspirations with a 5-0 thrashing of a woeful Crystal Palace side at the Etihad Stadium.
City never looked back after David Silva’s 50th goal for the club in the second minute, although it was not until the second half that the floodgates opened.
Vincent Kompany, Kevin de Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Nicolas Otamendi were all on target.
Victory moved City into third place with 69 points, above Liverpool on goal difference.
Fifth-placed Manchester United, who are to play Arsenal today, have 65.
Palace’s third consecutive defeat means they are still anxiously looking over their shoulders at the teams below them.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier