It feels like another two points dropped for Arsenal, given the events of recent weeks, but there were at least reasons for optimism in a hard-earned draw at Chelsea and the wider results on a weekend that could have ended far, far worse for Mikel Arteta’s side.
1. Never an ideal way to start a feature called 16 Conclusions, but that feels like a particularly awkward game from which to draw many firm conclusions. It was broadly fine from both teams, yet also a game impossible to extract from the context around it and an increasingly whimsical-looking Premier League table.
Chelsea and Arsenal sit third and fourth after this, which seems entirely sensible until you look closer and realise they are closer in points to 11th-placed Brentford than second-placed Manchester City.
2. This is all definitely more okay for Chelsea, simply because of the differing nature of these two clubs’ pre-season ambitions. If there is a specific conclusion to draw from this game then perhaps that’s it: this was a 1-1 draw in which Chelsea looked every bit Arsenal’s equal. They are level on points in the table, had three shots each on target here, missed two clear chances each, the possession percentage counter finished 49-51 with even the average player scores from WhoScored landing at 6.55-6.56. Arteta may have claimed afterwards to have dominated almost all phases of the game, but it’s hard to really make that case dispassionately.
It was a very even game between two very even teams that ended all-square. And while normally you’d have the away team happier with that state of events you can’t quite make that stick here.
3. Only one of these teams was expected to be in a title challenge this season, and they must therefore be the team more perturbed at slipping nine points off the pace as we all head off for the Lee Carsley Farewell Tour. Especially given Arsenal’s ropey form coming into the game.
At season’s end, a hard-fought draw at Chelsea will never be fingered as the primary source of any opportunity missed, and any weekend where you make up points on Man City is never an irredeemable failure. And there was the appetiser of being able to laugh at Spurs being enormously Spurs when presented with the chance to leapfrog both Chelsea and Arsenal into third.
But as Steven Chicken has already noted, Arsenal are rightly held to the highest of standards now and this perfectly acceptable result in isolation still feels very much like two points dropped in a wider context.
4. The fact this weekend could have gone much worse for Arsenal – there was an entirely plausible set of results that could have seen them stewing in eighth place during the interlull – is a significant silver lining, but the biggest positive for them here was surely the return of Martin Odegaard.
Injuries are an unavoidable part of the game and Arsenal’s title charges of the last two years have been helped by a couple of kind seasons on that front, but while they’ve never had the lengthiest injury list this season theirs has been an injury crisis that shows it’s very much a quality over quantity conundrum.
Odegaard’s absence ranks comfortably as the second most significant of the season so far behind only the irreplaceable Rodri at Manchester City. Arsenal muddled through not always convincingly in the early weeks without him but have looked increasingly bereft of the requisite guile and craft as his absence has been more and more keenly felt.
5. Before the game it felt like Odegaard playing from the start was an indicator of just how much importance this game had. The last game before an international break is a bold choice for a return to starting action.
But the performance of the Norwegian suggested simply that he returned to the starting line-up because he was ready to return after his late substitute appearance in Milan during the week. He played the full game and, far from fading as it went on, became ever more influential. His assist for Gabriel Martinelli’s opener was precisely the sort of thing Arsenal have lacked in recent weeks as Chelsea’s curious decision to attempt an offside trap in a wholly unsuitable situation backfired horribly.
6. That assist was one of four key passes Odegaard produced in a game where nobody else on either side managed more than two, and he did it while maintaining a pass success rate north of 91 per cent. For a player easing himself back into Barclays action in such a difficult game, it was a brilliant effort. It was still – as you’d expect – a way short of his absolute best but still such a clear reminder of what Arsenal have lacked in their recent struggles.
Their whole attacking rhythm just feels so much better when Odegaard is in there as the conductor.
7. It was a bad goal to concede in multiple ways for Chelsea. Ordinarily one might direct criticism at the player caught out of line playing everyone on – in this instance Levi Colwill – but this really did feel like one of those rare instances where one player can point at the rest and go “You’re all wrong.” Guess it is on him if those were the agreed tactics for those situations, but stepping out rather than defending the situation just never looked viable as Odegaard prepared to deliver.
8. And then there’s the contribution of big Bob Sanchez. He was widely praised in the Sky studio at half-time for a save from Martinelli that owed a large amount to positioning that exposed his near post but allowed him to beat the shot away without requiring anything so unedifyng as dirtying his knees or elbows.
Fine when it works out like that, but the goal came from an even narrower angle where a better starting position surely would have allowed no near-post gap at all for Martinelli to so adroitly locate.
It was a pinpoint finish, but still very much felt like one that shouldn’t have been on.
9. The goal came at a good time for the game if a bad one for Gary Neville’s failing voice. The first 15 minutes of the second half had been scrappier than a more enterprising first half in which the two sides traded blows. The goal put the game back on a more pleasing track all round with both sides’ focus seemingly renewed by the broken deadlock.
10. The first half was less cagey than might have been expected for such a classic high-stakes big-six clash. Both teams had decent 10-minute spells early in the piece, with Chelsea probably still wondering how Malo Gusto contrived to head over the bar after superbly picked out by Pedro Neto after turning Ben White this way and that.
Martinelli did put him off a bit, but from a couple of yards out and with the delivery pinpoint, it really did need scoring. He’d probably have been better off getting a bit less on it. If anything, Clive, he’s almost headed that too well. Should perhaps have approached the ball with less, well, Gusto.
11. Chelsea can probably consider themselves fortunate to get to the break level, though. They were caught napping by a perfectly legitimate quick Arsenal free-kick, with Declan Rice setting Kai Havertz through to hold off a belated challenge and slot past Sanchez.
To his enormous credit, Havertz dispensed with the standard performative muted celebration and shushed the Chelsea fans who had booed him in between declaring Rice a Chelsea reject and informing Arsenal’s fans that ‘Champions of Europe’ is a phrase that alas they shall never sing before a full-throated celebration.
Which makes it doubly upsetting to see the goal chalked off by VAR for so flimsy a reason as ‘being clearly offside’. I know that people generally want consistency or common sense from the much-loved technological game-botherer but we don’t want that. We think far more VAR decisions should be vibes-based. Really, would VAR be any worse if it dispensed with drawing lines on a screen and asked itself one simple question: which decision here is the funniest? It’s not like this approach hasn’t been used at various stages. It is, for instance, the only plausible way to explain that penalty West Ham got against Man United the other week.
Havertz scoring from a Rice assist was clearly more amusing than disallowing the goal for a reason Chelsea weren’t even complaining about. Their whinging was entirely based on not feeling suitably ready to defend the free-kick, which replays proved to be tish and fipsy. The offside was pure luck on their part, albeit one left inconveniently undeniable even without nerds drawing lines due to Havertz carelessly positioning himself not just beyond the last defender but also directly on the 18-yard line. He semi-automated his own offside, in a way.
12. Chelsea responded well to the setback of going behind, and were decent value for a point that felt fair. Neto’s first Premier League goal for his new club was timely and vital, and also beautifully struck into the bottom corner from 25 yards to send Gary Neville into full Bob Fleming mode on commentary. It’s perhaps just as well neither side could find a winner, as Neville would have surely had to analyse it via the medium of dance.
Neto’s tussle with Ben White had been one of the game’s most engaging, with Peter Drury particularly excited on commentary by the fact both players had been booked, constantly urging them to be cautious when battling each other in that way that makes it entirely obvious he, like the rest of us, really wanted the opposite. But the goal came just a couple of minutes after Neto had been shuffled across by the introduction of Mykhaylo Mudryk, with that perhaps offering some explanation for Arsenal’s apparent uncertainty over who should be picking him up.
With another substitute, Enzo Fernandez, providing the assist it was another pretty good moment for Enzo Maresca in what really has been an eye-catching start to his Chelsea career.
13. The Neto-White tangle was just one of many winger-full-back battles that felt particularly key here. Generally, the full-backs came out on top – most notably Marc Cucurella in a consummate shutting down of Bukayo Saka, while Cole Palmer drifted hither and thither in Chelsea’s attack without ever really making his presence felt.
His frustration at a sheer lack of involvement was highlighted late in the first half when a wildly optimistic attempt on goal from a 40-yard free-kick sailed wildly off target.
Arsenal shut down the Palmer threat pretty calmly and effectively throughout a game in which Nicolas Jackson and Neto gave the Gunners far more to think about.
14. These are slightly awkward times for Leandro Trossard. Having been a player who has come up trumps at some important moments for Arsenal since his move from Brighton, he now heads into the November international break without a goal or assist since the October international break.
Coming on as a sub just as the opposition score an equaliser isn’t ideal, but his contribution to a final 20 minutes in which both sides pushed hard for a winner was negligible and his confidence looks shot. He couldn’t hit the target with a pair of presentable chances and gave the ball away with two of his 12 touches.
15. It was Arsenal who came closest to a winning goal in the closing stages, most notably with the very last move of the match and a ball that agonisingly failed to arrive at the right foot at the right time on its way through the Chelsea penalty area. It may well have proved marginally offside in any case – either way it would certainly have provided VAR with another chance to pick the funniest rather than most correct outcome, which would in this case undoubtedly have been disallowing a last-second Arsenal winner after they’d celebrated it in suitably Keys-bothering fashion.
Alas it wasn’t to be, but at least it spared Neville’s vocal cords any further punishment beyond a strangled “Oh no!”
16. So where does it all leave the title race? We think Arsenal are still just about in it. There’s no doubt that a nine-point deficit to Liverpool is not the same thing as a nine-point deficit to Manchester City. There are glass half-full and half-empty approaches for Arsenal to take about the fact their own recent unexpected struggles have coincided with City’s, but the overall effect has been to keep the race far more open than the Gunners’ results really deserve.
And while City giving tantalising glimpses of false early-season hope to any pursuers has been a frequent element to even their most dominant title wins, the issues at City and the long-term absence of Rodri do feel more substantial this time around. That could all once again prove illusory, of course, but we suspect not. Arsenal will have to improve from recent weeks, but that’s no great revelation. The point is that currently they look more capable of recovering their misplaced mojo than City. It’s something.
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