Chelsea 2 Tottenham 0. In the end all the pre-match hype came to nothing as Chelsea cruised to a 2-0 victory over Spurs in the final of the Capital One Cup. It was Jose Mourinho's first trophy since returning to Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2013 and even the Special One must have been surprised at the ease of the victory.
Tottenham were poor, managing just three shots on target as the Harry Kane bandwagon was derailed by a competent, collective performance from Chelsea.
The young Tottenham striker, so influential this season, failed to rise to the occasion and instead it was an old-timer, Chelsea captain John Terry, who opened the scoring with a goal on the stroke of half-time. His deflected shot was replicated by Diego Costa on 56 minutes with the goal being credited as an own goal by Tottenham’s Kyle Walker after it hit him to leave goalkeeper Hugo Lloris stranded.
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Tottenham’s best effort was a Christian Eriksen free-kick in the first-half that rattled the woodwork.
"I am really happy," declared Mourinho. "My players were fantastic. Finals are not for playing they are for winning. We did not have problems. They had a couple of chances but nothing else. We knew we would be dangerous on the counter and we played like we should play a final."
It was Mourinho’s first silverware since guiding Real Madrid to the Spanish league title in 2012 and Chelsea have been without a new addition to their trophy cabinet since winning the Europa League the following year. Describing the victory as "massive", John Terry added: "It could be the start of something very good but we have got the league to focus on. I thought we handled the game well and the pressure well. First half it was even but controlled the second half."
The defeat caps a calamitous few days for Tottenham. Dumped out of the Europa League by Fiorentina on Thursday, the Lilywhites also saw wins for three of their Premier League rivals at the weekend with Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United all taking maximum points from their games. All of which leaves Spurs in seventh, six points behind Manchester United in fourth and facing a stern test of their character in the final weeks of the season. "We have a lot of games but this is not an excuse, we need to learn about that and now we need to go to the next game, we have a tough game on Wednesday against Swansea and on Saturday against QPR," said manager Mauricio Pochettino. "Our challenge now is the next game. We need to try and get the three points against Swansea, we need to move forward and forget the final and recover our players and our minds.
