It would be fair to say that Juan Mata was the best player on the park during Chelsea’s 4-2 win over Tottenham, with the Spaniard well and truly pulling the strings during the victory. Following his highly impressive performance, Petr Cech has lauded praise on the player and insisted that Roberto Di Matteo’s decision to rest him for two weeks has paid dividends.
Mata was the star of the show on Saturday, with the Blues coming back from being 2-1 down to completely outclass Spurs and strengthen their hold at the top of the Premier League. As well as scoring twice, the former Valencia midfielder was a constant thorn in the side of Andre Villas-Boas’ side, with the club’s former manager even lavishing praise on the player he brought to Stamford Bridge just over twelve months ago.
Following on from the classy performance, goalkeeper Cech has praised all his teammates. He told talkSPORT that the team did fantastically well to win their first game at White Hart Lane in years, while also complimented Di Matteo’s approach in relation to Mata, “It was a great reaction from 2-1 down. We haven’t won here for a long time and then you think here we go again but it was not the case, we knew how to get back into the game and in the end we scored some great goals. It was important to give him [Mata] a break. You can’t play two seasons in a row and the Euros. You can see he benefited from that, he’s still got the hunger to play. It’s great to see him playing like that.”
The win over Spurs means that the Blues retain their place at the top of the division, with 2nd place Manchester United still four points behind following the opening eight games.