Arsenal 3 - 1 Chelsea

Chelsea embarrassed by 16th placed Arsenal as they miss opportunity to go 2nd in the Premier League

Chelsea have just come off an embarrassing performance against Arsenal who, if The Blues were challenging for the title, should have steamrolled past 16th in the league. The one good thing about Chelsea’s performance is that it was consistent… consistently lacklustre. Chelsea started the game with a naïve arrogance, as if they were expecting to be able to walk all over Arsenal. They started the game extremely slowly, with Gabriel Martinelli having an opportunity within the first minute.

10 minutes into first half, Chelsea were able to work themselves into the game: passing the ball from side to side with relative ease, controlling possession but not being able to do much, in terms of creating clear chances. In the 12th minute, Pulisic made a clever run, driving towards the Arsenal box only for him to be hacked down by a Granit Xhaka slide tackle. Mason Mount and Reece James stood over the dead ball from 30 yards out; Mount curls the ball around the wall expertly, only for it to hit the outside of the post. If it had been a few centimetres to the left, Chelsea would have been 1-0 up. 16 minutes into the game, Matteo Kovacic is completely taken out by Pablo Mari and is booked for the offense, although it could be argued that it could have been a red. In the 34th minute there appears to be a coming together between Reece James and Kieran Tierney, which ends up being given as a penalty for Arsenal. VAR looks at it and there seems to be extremely minimal contact; contact between Tierney’s back leg and Reece James only seems to happen once the Arsenal defender starts to fall to the floor. Lacazette slotted the ball into the bottom right-hand corner, with Mendy diving the other way. Whilst the penalty was extremely soft, it wasn’t against the run of play, with Arsenal being the better team. From that point on the half seemed to die down with Chelsea seemingly stunned by the goal. In the 44th minute, Chelsea give away a silly penalty on the edge of the box, with Xhaka and Lacazette both stood over the ball. Xhaka runs up to the ball, hitting it with his left foot and watches it sail into the top right-hand corner and he is mobbed by his team mates to celebrate the goal, following his return from suspension. The half ends 2-0 to Arsenal, with Arteta’s team looking more on top.

The second half kicked off with two substitutions for Chelsea, Callum Hudson-Odoi on for Timo Werner and Jorginho on for Matteo Kovacic. In the 56th minute, Bukayo Saka shocked Chelsea as he saw his cross, from the right-hand side of the box, float over Edouard Mendy’s head and into the top corner of the side netting. Just six minutes later, Arsenal nearly added another to their lead as Martinelli got on the end of a low cross from Tierney, but Mendy made a save after it deflected off Kurt Zouma. Soon after, Ben Chilwell managed to perfectly sum up Chelsea’s performance when his far post header, aimed towards the ground, but it bounced back into his own face. Callum Hudson-Odoi used this game to showcase the fact that he should be starting more as he flooded the ball with crosses but there was not enough quality from Chelsea, as they struggled to divert the ball towards Leno’s net. Crossing was clearly Chelsea’s most promising avenue so the logical substitution would have been bringing on Olivier Giroud however, Havertz was brought on for Kante. In the 84th minute, disaster almost struck for Chelsea as Mendy tried to lift the ball over Lacazette’s head and into Zouma’s feet, but it was intercepted by the French striker who attempted to curl it round the Chelsea keeper, but it was saved well and was tipped round the post for a corner. The pressure was again mounted on Chelsea as Mendy was forced into making about five saves from the subsequent corner. Following this, Chelsea managed to break quickly through Hudson-Odoi, who crossed the ball in which finally saw a chance converted as Tammy Abraham chested the ball past Leno. In the 91st minute, Pablo Marí clattered into Mason Mount, giving Chelsea a penalty and a lifeline. Due to Werner being on the bench, Jorginho stepped up, but his trademark technique was read by the keeper and he made an easy save. The final whistle blew two minutes later, and Arsenal won 3-1. The game’s xG (expected goals) saw the game finish 2.09 – 2.42 in Chelsea’s favour.

“You either make it or more difficult for them or you give them an opportunity and we did that 45 minutes. You get what you deserve. Lazy to give away a penalty. Lazy in terms of giving away a free kick that he puts in the top corner. I’m very, very disappointed in the way we approached the first half. It’s not tactics or system, it’s do you want to run, do you want to back your team now? Do you want to sprint, or do you want to jog? Do you want to say oh maybe I don’t have to run? We took that decision, and it was the wrong one.” - Frank Lampard's post match thoughts

This boxing day clash has highlighted lots of problems for this Chelsea team but, it is not the end of the world, and no reason to be calling for Lampard’s head. I believe playing Reece James and Ben Chilwell when not fully fit was a risk that was not necessary; I would have liked to see Azpilicueta starting over James, and for him to be brought on in the second half. If necessary, the opposite should have been done for Chilwell and Emerson. Another problem is that Chelsea give away a lot of silly fouls. Championship winning teams are disciplined enough to not give away silly fouls on the edge of the box, something that often costs Chelsea dearly. Defensive mistakes cost Chelsea today because, if Saka did not have as much time, we would not be sat here looking at a Chelsea being embarrassed by 16th in the league. My final negative point about this game is that Jorginho has now missed three penalties this season and his 100% record is a thing of the past; the midfielder has previously said that he doesn’t care who takes the penalties as long as the team scores so I believe he should be taken off them. When Werner isn’t on the pitch, I think we should look at other options like the other strikers on the pitch, Azpilicueta who is always reliable in a penalty shoot-out or even Reece James. Whilst we haven’t seen him take a penalty, he has a great delivery and strikes the ball very cleanly, as seen in the Brighton game.

Chelsea’s shining star tonight was academy graduate, Callum Hudson-Odoi. When he came on at half time, he gave The Blues a much-needed injection of pace and posed a threat upon the game. Chelsea have an opportunity to rectify this poor performance with their next game against Aston Villa, in two days. Hudson-Odoi deserves to start against Villa given his performance tonight, this gives Lampard the possibility to play Werner down the middle because, at the moment, he looks out of depth when he plays on the wing. However, I believe it would be harsh and unfair to drop Tammy Abraham considering he has 3 goals in 2 games. At Leipzig, Werner was used down the middle and on the left. Werner has the ability to do both but at the moment his confidence is low, due to going 10 games without a goal, so his performances are taking a hit. Whilst the West Londoners have two fit wingers, Werner deserves his chance to play centre forward; the German’s best performance of the season came in Chelsea’s 3-3 draw against Southampton where he scored a brace, playing as a lone striker. I believe that once he starts putting in more performances like these, he’ll be more confident and competent playing on the left, when called upon.

Since the start of the season, I have said that this Chelsea side will take time to gel due to the high amount of signings coming into the first team squad so bumps in the road are expected, probably until the start of next season. Chelsea went 13 games with only losing 1 game, which saw them go top of the league at one point. Now, 3 losses in their last 4; in the words of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche: “There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping-stones; it all depends on how you use them.”

What were your thoughts on the game? Let me know.