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Tottenham star was forced to apologise after 'ridiculous' decision against Chelsea

Yves Bissouma was the catalyst for Tottenham's collapse against Chelsea last season as the Blues went from 2-0 down to 4-3 up in a showdown for the ages

Tottenham host Chelsea on Saturday evening, with new manager Thomas Frank hoping to avoid a repeat of the mistakes Spurs made during the fixture last season. Back in December, Spurs midfielder Yves Bissouma had to apologise after his part in his side's collapse against the Blues, despite taking a 2-0 lead within 12 minutes.


Last year, then-manager Ange Postecoglou watched as his side collapsed to a 4-3 defeat after they gave away two penalties for Chelsea to take advantage of. Bissouma was at fault for the first spot-kick as he fouled Moises Caicedo on the hour mark, allowing Cole Palmer to equalise.


The game ended 4-3 to the Blues and Bissouma took to social media afterwards to apologise to both team-mates and fans for his needless challenge that sparked the comeback. He wrote: "I'm so sad for that mistake it's burning me because we lost the game today from this mistake.


"I feel sorry for my team-mates, staff and fans. I take all the responsibility for that one. I'll learn from this one, it's time now to show the real me. Thanks for all the support."

Liverpool icon Jamie Carragher was one of many people to criticise Bissouma's flailing mistake in the penalty area, controversially claiming the midfielder was "brain dead" for making the tackle.

READ MORE: Chelsea's Cole Palmer 'crying' over his Tottenham taunt as 'difficult' message sentREAD MORE: I was naive to join Tottenham from Chelsea - it was crazy but I'd become manager's victim

Speaking on Sky Sports at the time, the ex-Red said: "I've said all day that some of the things Tottenham players do is absolutely ridiculous.


"It's a certain penalty, and it was his (Bissouma's) mistake initially on the far side, losing the ball to [Pedro] Neto. And he maybe comes flying across thinking, 'I've got to try and rectify this in some way'. He was really poor on the first challenge on Neto. That is absolutely brain dead. I mean, who'd be a manager?"

Postecoglou, Bissouma's manager at the time, was also angered by the mistake and stated it was "unnecessary." The former Spurs boss said: "In the second half they came out and put us under pressure.


"I felt we were handling it not too badly and then when they scored we had a big moment at 2-2 to go 3-2 up and in these kind of games, those moments are important. We don't take it and then both penalties were poor on our behalf.

"They're self-inflicted and unnecessary challenges. We've given them two goals away for no reason and given ourselves a mountain to climb which proved too hard."

Bissouma will not feature in Saturday evening's match due to an ankle injury as the two sides meet at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium once again.

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But fans will be hoping that they put on a performance full of action like they did last year. Given they've each scored 17 goals in nine games, fireworks can be expected.

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