Chelsea Share Points With Arsenal In A London Derby: Post-Match Analysis.

Chelsea lined up in their normal 4-3-3 formation with Jorginho, Kante and Kovacic in charge of the midfield. This was a more 3-3-4 during the attacking mode with Ngolo Kante or Kovacic running through the spaces.

Arsenal on the other hand lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with Lacazatte  being the only striker up front. Bellerin mostly played in the midfield when Xhaka dropped to the left back position where Saka always supported in the attack.

 David Luiz's tackle on Tammy Abrahams. Picture: VegasOdds.com

David Luiz got a red card on the 25th minute after an attempt to intercept Tammy Abrahams. So Xhaka was forced to drop to the Centre back position and then Arsenal shifted to 4-4-1. In the build up phase, Bellerin patnered Lucas Torreira in the midfield.

Chelsea's Game play:

Frank Lampard used Ngolo Kante as a box-to-box midfielder. Mostly, Kante tried to make late runs inside the box. Hudson Odoi whipped crosses in the box for Tammy Abrahams and tried to locate team mates in the box. This tactic worked out when Azpilicueta scored Chelsea's second goal.

 Azpilicueta scored the second goal for Chelsea after Odoi's cross.  Screenshot: Maybach (youtube)

Arsenal's Game play:

Mikel Arteta's side were to hit Chelsea on transitions. They stayed deep in their half and let Chelsea dominate the match while they counter-press them. Chelsea liked to play with a high defensive line and Arsenal used Luiz and Xhaka to play direct long balls behind the line.

Chelsea's Wide Overloads.

Martinelli did a wonderful in this match both during attacks and also when Arsenal sat back to defend. Mostly, Emerson and Willian made wide overloads on the left wing while Odoi and Azpilicueta did the same on the right. Bellerin faced two players alone Pepe did not drop back to cover Azpilicueta.

Martinelli did a brilliant job as he always covered Emerson thus helping his team defensively.

Chelsea did not utilise their corner kicks well.

Lampard's men got a total of 17 corners during the match and only scored 1 goal from a corner. This shows that Chelsea are not sharp when it comes to corner kicks.

Chelsea were not clinical in front of the goal.

Chelsea made a total of 19 shots overall of which 8 were on target. Their goal scoring rate in this match was very low. Chelsea had only 0.105. On the other hand, Arsenal scored 2 goals from their 2 shots. Arsenal's goalscoring rate was 1. They utilised all their chances unlike Chelsea who had 3 clear chances of scoring goals but wasted them.

 Arsenal's second shot and second goal from captain Hector Bellerin. Source: Evening Standard.

CONCLUSION:

It was an interesting match to watch the two London Powerhouses locked horns. There were a lot of tactical battles between Frank Lampard and Mikel Arteta who met on thi stadium as players and as coaches. Many chances were created from the blue side of London but they were not clinicak enough in front of the goal. 

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