Chelsea drew a second consecutive blank, and their third draw in a row as Arsenal held the Blues to a hard-fought draw in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final.
Despite both teams suffering disappointing results in the FA Cup at the weekend, Chelsea chose far stronger starting eleven than the Gunners who left out Alexis Sanchez and Petr Cech from their defeat to Nottingham Forest, whilst Mesut Ozil played no part due to injury. The game was a slow burner and didn’t create any real chances of note, as Alvaro Morata and Alexandre Lacazette both fluffed half chances in a reenactment of last week’s fruitless struggle to put the ball in the back of the net.
The second-half saw Andreas Christensen nod over from close range, whilst both Moses and Kante had goalbound efforts blocked dramatically. Morata continued to toil in front of goal, poking a shot wide of Ospina when the Colombian rushed out to smother the ball. The best chance of the game, however, presented itself to Christensen once again, but after Ospina had failed to claim a cross the unmarked centre-half could redirect his header despite being just yards from goal.
Arsenal now hold the home advantage heading into the second leg as Chelsea look to reach their second Carabao Cup final in four years.
Thibaut Courtois - 7
Commanded his area well claiming every loose ball and made a smart save in the first-half to keep the scores level.
Cesar Azpilicueta - 7
Took the captain’s armband in Cahill’s absence and kept a clean sheet to go with it, his level head was necessary when the game became scrappy.
Andreas Christensen - 6
Missed two guilt edged opportunities to give Chelsea the lead, but on the other hand, he marshalled Lacazette and Sanchez well restricting them to possession outside of the area.
Antonio Rudiger - 7
His deep passes didn’t find their target on many occasions but striding out of defence with the ball he was confident and assured in finding a teammate. defensively solid although he had very little to do other than martial the ball out of play.
Victor Moses - 5
A truly horrific partnership was born under the lights of Stamford Bridge tonight as Victor Moses and Danny Drinkwater attempted to create attacking opportunities with what must be said is a very limited attacking skills set. Moses’s runs were non-existent as he constantly hugged the touchline staying within two yards of his carer for the night Drinkwater, playing pointless gives and go’s that had a lot of give and absolutely no go. Just to sum up Moses’s evening, even on the rare occasion he did beat his marker he couldn’t deliver a cross that passed the first man
Danny Drinkwater - 5
The second and somehow even more atrocious member of this unwittingly comic double act is Drinkwater, a man who clearly specialises in big game nerves. Whilst he’s able to ping passes and score ‘worldies’ like Paul Scholes against Stoke when it comes to Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-final he can hardly string a pass together, although in fairness to him he did complete a hell of a lot of two-yard passes with Moses which will probably have sent his pass accuracy through the roof – just don’t ask him to clip one into the channels for Morata to run onto.
Oh and his first touch was pretty heavy as well.
N'Golo Kante - 7
Put in some good challenges to win back the ball but at times he tried too hard to regain possession catching players from behind with a couple of reckless tackles that seem to have snuck into his game over recent weeks.
Cesc Fabregas - 6
Supposedly the creative hub of Chelsea’s team Fabregas misplaced far too many passes, whilst his ball over the top routine was predictable and easy to defend for a team who had just a week earlier learnt the dangers of misjudging the flight of one of Fabregas’s raking through balls.
Marcos Alonso - 6
Wasn’t for lack of effort that Alonso couldn’t help Chelsea find the breakthrough as he battled courageously in the box to keep the ball alive. His touch let him down when he tried to bring down some of Fabregas’s passes.
Eden Hazard - 6
Probably one of his poorest games this season, as he began to show signs of fatigue after a packed Christmas schedule. The Belgian passed up the opportunity to shoot too many times, as he often found himself with a split second more space than the rest of his team – a luxury in a game this tight.
Alvaro Morata - 5
To be fair to him he wasn’t given much service, but yet again whenever he did break past Arsenal’s backline he didn’t make the most of his chance, whether it was failing to find the target or a teammate his end product was lacking and this recurring theme is starting to wain on most supporters minds as Chelsea have failed on a number of occasions to break teams down this season.
Subs:
Willian – 5 looked tired when he came on, obviously still feeling the effects of playing the full 90n against Norwich.
Tiemoue Bakayoko – 5 an odd switch for Hazard as Chelsea were pushing for a goal.
Michy Bathsuayi – 5 didn’t have much time but he couldn’t find the target with a header from a difficult position.