The human soup of the Chelsea team shows the club's DNA: all filler, no murderer | first division

W.ait. Is this a twist? Is this a pain, a surge, a sea change? Or is it just what it feels like to play? Chelseaopponents so poor that at times they seemed to indulge in a kind of non-sporting, football protest activity as an act of standing for a long time waiting for it to end.

A measure of Manchester City's dominance is the fact that the last week has brought a peculiar feeling that Arsenal's season is already over, despite still being top of the table. Here Arsenal left three points ahead of Liverpool and four ahead of City (who have two games less) with a performance that felt, at least, like a kind of liberation.

This always seemed to be the decisive week for the title race. But it was also a fascinating football match in itself. Kai Havertz had a wonderful game, regaining his role as a false nine, one of the great positives of Arsenal's season. Martin Ødegaard was sublime, such a strange mix of brusque domestic pressure and wonderful surgical passes, as if a poet were chasing him to death.

Ødegaard has led this Arsenal team, which still feels like the best in the league this year, scoring the most goals and winning the most convincingly. Will it mean something, in the end, to score five goals against a Chelsea team that collapsed like a cardboard box in the rain? Manchester City does not seem happy. Suddenly it feels like a struggle. Pep Guardiola has complained, strangely, of fatigue. At least they will be forced to win this now.

And of course it helped that Chelsea were so bad. How unusual to win a match 5-0 at the last knock of a title race and yet somehow it is the opposition that feels like the story here. That's how bad Chelsea were. Even the team's staff had the feeling of the end of times, of leftovers, of football in the post-apocalypse.

Mudryk-Madueke-Jackson-Gallagher. This is a strange human soup, disparate parts, human talent as amortized numbers. We are the stuffed men. We are the hollow men. We are Chelsea's midfield. Imagine not beating this Chelsea team 5-0.

In a way it was refreshing. There are so many heavy football systems out there. How liberating to see a team without any plan. At one point, Enzo Fernandez carried the ball forward 30 yards, then appeared to run out of bandwidth, stopping and starting again, visibly confused. Conor Gallagher's only real job from the start was to run and stand in front of every Arsenal free kick. Well, it's a life.

Talent has accumulated here. But why? This is the question Chelsea seem to ask themselves with every lateral pass, every restart shrug. There is a serious drop in quality in this Chelsea team without Cole Palmer and Malo Gusto. One strange thing about the 18-month mega-spree was the narrow range of talent. Chelsea bought many footballers at room temperature. All filler, not killer. This is our DNA now: the yes-maybe player.

The Emirates had been cold and a little low-key at the start, perhaps still bruised from the last 10 days. The first goal came early, the product of Thomas Partey, playing behind Declan Rice, producing a nice quick simple pass to Rice, who passed it to Leandro Trossard. The shot passed through Djordje Petrovic, the ball somehow passing his feet as he fell backwards like a poorly constructed Jenga tower.

Arsenal fell asleep and walked around for a while. Rest came and went. And in ten minutes Arsenal finished the game. First, Ødegaard did something beautiful: he produced a reverse pass from a standing position, turned straight and looked away, right at Havertz's feet in front of the goal.

Petrovic blocked, but from the corner it was 2-0, Ben White putting a loose ball into the net as the Chelsea players experimented with the precise limits of how close you can get to a football match without having any effect on its outcome. .

Ødegaard did it again moments later, a pass from inside his own half curling toward Havertz, who skated away, head up and knees high, like a mid-range trader in flannel shorts on a rink. of cement, before crashing the ball high. network.

In the 65th minute, it was Havertz again, the Chelsea defenders feigned football activity while he had time to stop, dodge and shoot at the near post. Arsenal's 24th shot on goal made it 5-0. It wasn't really a shot, but more of a sort of volley cross from Ben White, having fun, trying something.

This may or may not have been a turning point. It's probably a little late already. But it felt, at the very least, like a statement of life for this team; and a promise to fight until the end.