LONDON — Would Chelsea have been this good if Moises Caicedo hadn’t thrust them into such trying circumstances? That will remain a question for fan fiction. What we do know for certain is that a man down before the halftime whistle, Chelsea rallied in outstanding fashion. Their pace on the counter robbed the best team in the land of the chance to hold court in the final third; their goalkeeper was exceptional under pressure and they were far superior in the duels.
Apply all those qualities with 11 men and this team would surely have been even more superior to an Arsenal that could not quite power through a third great test of the week. In the 37 minutes before Caicedo went slamming into Mikel Merino’s ankle, Chelsea had been the better team. For much of the match that followed, they could lay claim to that description. It’s just that there’s only so much better you can be when you have 10% fewer outfielders. There are only so many attacks you can repel. Marc Cucurella on the cusp of a red card isn’t going to be able to stop every Bukayo Saka cross.
“Eleven vs. eleven, I think we’re a better team than them,” said Enzo Maresca. “We controlled the game, we created chances, we didn’t concede anything. The red card changed the dynamic, but even with that, the way the players dealt with that has been outstanding.”
That is precisely the problem for Chelsea, one of perhaps only two coming out of the final whistle. [The other, of course, being that Reece James isn’t fit enough to play like this every week]. They were exceptionally placed in this game and not for the first time this season they made it harder for themselves. Where might they be if they had a steady veteran at the back to knock heads together at the key moments?
This performance should imbue Chelsea with optimism for the season ahead. As against Liverpool, as against Barcelona, they have proven themselves able to better Europe’s best. Today, however, was the day to turn that into points. A six-point deficit to Arsenal is nowhere near unbridgeable with 25 games to play but there is no better chance to adjust the table to your advantage than at home to the league leaders.
And still, this result serves to reaffirm that one doubt about Chelsea. Their talent is not up for dispute. For this team to win the biggest prizes will require a discipline and battle-hardened edge that they have yet to develop. Instead, their lack of composure seems endemic. When Caicedo saw red, so did his teammates. Heads went to Uranus. Enzo Fernandez came out swinging in the wrong way. Silly fouls let Arsenal ease up the field.
Maybe Chelsea wouldn’t have kept this up without Caicedo’s red. They played with apoplectic energy, hitting the challenges with the intensity of the aggrieved. Their second half spoke to a point they were intent on proving. They knew they had been the better at 11 vs. 11. They wanted to do the same without Caicedo. If he hadn’t gone off maybe they would not have found that extra gear after the interval and would have fallen to the sheer strength in depth Mikel Arteta could deploy. Maresca’s words ring truer than that supposition, though. Chelsea had been the better team. All they needed to do was adapt to the way the game was heading. Instead, they slipped into bad habits at the moment their quality should have shone through.
Something had been brewing from early on. Anthony Taylor set his stall out in perfectly reasonable fashion; there was to be no adjusting for the blood and thunder of a London derby. A yellow card challenge would result in…a yellow card. Entirely reasonable but when he had dished them out to three of Arsenal’s back six as well as Cucurella, Saka’s defender in chief, it delivered a curious timbre to the game. For a time, it became one of foul hunting, each side less intent on working their way through midfield than baiting a foul that would have Taylor reaching for his pocket again.
It was here that Chelsea outfielders looked every day of their average sub-24 years. The contrast with the experience of Martin Zubimendi, admittedly only 26 but with well over 300 senior games for Spain and Real Sociedad, did not look favorable for Maresca’s side. He might have been booked with 85 minutes to play but he had done this often enough to know how he could sneak in to steal possession without giving away a foul. Plenty of his teammates also understood how to stay on the right side of the line too.
The one that didn’t, Piero Hincapie, might have been lucky to still be on the pitch when his elbow seemed to connect with Trevoh Chalobah’s head. “I asked the referee, he said no that was not an elbow,” said Maresca. “He has a black eye, he was with ice at half time. [The referees] judged in a different way.”
Chalobah would get his revenge. Hincapie remained but conceded the free kick in an advantageous position, what Mikel Arteta termed a “corner”, that handed Chelsea the lead. As with everything else he did, Reece James’ delivery was sensational, Trevoh Chalobah’s header looping high over David Raya.
It gave Chelsea something to defend and defend it they did in impressive fashion. For all the right reasons, you could tell that this was red card number seven (including Maresca) of the last 15. The manager knew how to adapt his team. In came Alejandro Garnacho and Liam Delap, the Blues manager refusing to follow the cautious approach that he had tried against Manchester United. Arsenal’s corners are supposed to have the opposition cowering in the corner. Maresca wasn’t the first to put attackers upfield in hope of a counter but few have stuck their front three on the halfway line when a man down.
With James pulling the string in midfield, there were chances for Chelsea, who were fully intent on making the most of the absence of both William Saliba and Gabriel. Swapping in Piero Hincapie and Cristhian Mosquera brought a degree more unpredictability at the back but perhaps the greatest problems came as they tried to build possession. Lacking the progression that Saliba in particular provides, Arteta felt compelled to occasionally drop both of Declan Rice and Zubimendi deep to aid with build-up.
Ahead of them were tired legs and minds who had fought hard to earn their statement wins over Tottenham and Bayern Munich. Perhaps they understood that today was a day when a draw would do them fine. Perhaps they felt unable to commit the bodies forward most teams would with a man’s advantage, acutely aware that it only took one mistake from Hincapie, Mosquera or Myles Lewis-Skelly for the game to be 10 on 10. Whatever the explanation, they weren’t who they can be.
They still got the sort of result they needed, given the circumstances. It is not a bad sign to come away from Stamford Bridge feeling disappointed to have only earned a solitary point. “
That’s the feeling that we have and that’s the standards that we set for ourselves,” said Arteta.
“Probably it’s because of the spirit and the hunger and how much they want it. It’s so incredible that we will overcome everything.”
On this occasion, Arsenal overcame themselves even if they didn’t quite overcome Chelsea. Still, it augurs well for a team that have otherwise proven themselves to be the best in Europe right now that even when they are off color, they can find a way not to lose. A defeat here could have gone down as a significantly damaging one for the leaders, an opening smashed wider by a young team who have proven their ability to outplay the best.
Instead, that proved to be beyond 10 men. The unanswerable question is whether it might have been possible for 11.
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