Misunderstandings and misalignment mar Lukaku’s season at Chelsea

There are games of football that feel like the inevitable product of their circumstances: system against system, the attacking and defensive patterns predetermined days in advance, the result telegraphed from the moment the first ball is kicked. Then there are the games in which Granit Xhaka runs the midfield, a mass brawl breaks out in the closing minutes and Eddie Nketiah scores twice against a team currently sanctioned by the UK government.

Chaos, farce, or high entertainment? Probably a mixture of all three. As shirtless Arsenal fans clambered over each other in the Shed End, as a fuming César Azpilicueta remonstrated with some of the few Chelsea supporters who were left in the ground, it was tempting to write this off as a classic slice of freak Barclays, a crunch London derby with all the logic and ambience of a Carabao Cup fourth-round tie.

Related: Eddie Nketiah double hands Arsenal vital win amid Chelsea chaos

Chelsea remain well ahead in the race for Champions League football. Thomas Tuchel sent out a weakened, experimental XI. Their attentions are understandably divided at the moment. Perhaps this was simply a case of victory going to the team who cared more.

But pick through the bones of Chelsea’s third consecutive home defeat and there are signs of legitimate concern. Most obviously you fear for that defence, so impregnable and well drilled earlier in the season, but which has already conceded more goals in 2022 than it did in the first 10 months of 2021. Even Thiago Silva’s introduction at half-time failed to blunt Arsenal’s threat on the counter-attack, the prevailing mood of panic that seems to grip Chelsea every time someone vaguely decent runs at them.

And yet, even in the wake of a four-goal