Tuchel struggles to make case for the defence as Chelsea flirt with chaos

As a measure of how badly the night went for Chelsea nothing summed it up more than Thomas Tuchel blaming his side’s latest shoddy defensive display on the state of the Stamford Bridge turf. “It is a very difficult pitch we have here,” Tuchel said as his thoughts turned to Andreas Christensen setting Arsenal on their way to victory by handing Eddie Nketiah the opening goal with a comical shank. “It is not to our favour and the ball bounces very, very awkwardly when the ball bounces to Andreas.”

It was certainly a creative way for Chelsea’s manager to explain a third consecutive hammering at home. Privately, though, Tuchel knew Chelsea had lost because they were outplayed and outrun by Arsenal. The German looked at himself and asked questions. Had he picked the right starting XI? Tuchel suspected that Arsenal would want it more but he did not adjust his lineup accordingly and was unable to influence the game once it became clear that Chelsea were intent on contributing to their own downfall.

Chaos reigned. Arsenal simply ran through Ruben Loftus-Cheek and N’Golo Kanté, who was underpowered in midfield, before discomfiting Chelsea’s back three. The space afforded to Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Martin Ødegaard was astonishing. It was as if Chelsea had never seen Arsenal before and the alarming thing for Tuchel, whose side have conceded 11 goals in three home games, is that this performance did not come out of the blue.

The clumsiness, typified by César Azpilicueta dragging down Saka to concede a needless penalty when Chelsea still had time to score a third equaliser, did not appear out of nowhere; it was there when Brentford and Real Madrid ran riot at Stamford Bridge.

The laxness has infuriated Tuchel and he did not