Three things we learned from Chelsea draw as dogged Blues show fight to earn a point | OneFootball

Blues defied adversity to claim a well-earned point

It was the Spaniard who netted Arsenal’s eventual leveller shortly after Trevoh Chalobah had given Chelsea the lead. Neither side could muster a winner, though, as Chelsea held firm and earned (in every sense of the word) the point they came away with.

Playing Arsenal at their own game

Brentford may be more reliant on set plays as a route to goal, but Arsenal are the Premier League’s greatest set-piece specialists.

Whenever there was a chance to hurl in a long throw or for Bukayo Saka to bend in one of his often undefendable in-swinging crosses, set piece coach Nicolas Jover could be seen lurking at the front of Arsenal’s technical area with Arteta.

But the Gunners did not have their usual joy from any of their set plays all evening, and yet it was through this precise route that Chelsea made Stamford Bridge erupt with beating noise shortly after the break.

Reece James swung in an in-swinger, and Chalobah leapt highest at the front post to direct an accurate nod through the bodies and past David Raya. The Blues gave the set-piece specialists a taste of their own medicine and gave themselves a platform for a possible victory or, as it turned out, a fully-merited draw.

Seeing red: Moises Caicedo

Chelsea FC via Getty Images

Up for physical battle

It was a fiery and gritty London derby, the tone of which was set once referee Anthony Taylor handed out a fifth-minute booking to Arsenal’s Martin Zubimendi for a reasonably innocuous foul.

That may have made for a bitty, ill-tempered match, but it also demonstrated the physical battle that was about to ensue.

Caicedo was a major part of that before his sending off, giving Jurrien Timber a forceful shove in the back — just about legal — and celebrating it with Marc Cucurella and the revved-up Chelsea crowd.

Covering a huge amount of ground, Caicedo later dangled a right leg through the legs of Eberechi Eze and got a nick on a loose ball to take it away from the Englishman.

James, who was magnificent throughout, had a similarly fired-up attitude and made plentiful interceptions before driving forward with the ball.

Caicedo the latest to see red

Caicedo’s dismissal was Chelsea’s seventh red card in all competitions this season, and it’s not even December yet.

That should be a sobering statistic for Chelsea internally, and it is increasingly unfeasible to claim there is no discipline problem at a club where one of the red cards was for their own manager, Maresca, against Liverpool in October.

The Caicedo red was not a deliberately malicious tackle but was another avoidable one, and one which dealt a blow to the Blues’ odds of winning this game, especially because it came in just the 38th minute.

Chelsea had a lot of football to play with ten men and, to their credit, did so with admirable organisation and showed real guts. They did not let the best team in the land convert their man advantage into the more valuable currency of all three points.

It was a first-ever Premier League red card for Caicedo, in his 130th league game. Chelsea lost their most important player and still earned a draw. Costly, but it could have been worse.