Chelsea used a fearless tactic while defending corners to leave Arsenal flummoxed in their Carabao Cup semi-final on Tuesday night.
And now it has fans wondering: have they stumbled across a way to rein in Arsenal’s dominance from set-pieces?
It marked a refreshing twist on a night when the Blues were criticised for a cautious performance, with Paul Merson claiming they ‘went out with a whimper’ after losing 1-0 to a Kai Havertz goal and 4-2 on aggregate.
The trick? At corners, Liam Rosenior flung forward three men to stand on or near the half-way line instead of marking attackers.
Arsenal admittedly only had two corners, so it is a small sample size, but it certainly gave food for thought.
For Arsenal’s first corner in the 17th minute, Chelsea waited for their hosts to gather in their attacking formation before suddenly sending up three men: Malo Gusto, Liam Delap, and Jorrel Hato.
That left Arsenal with a decision of how many men to station at the back. Do they overload the box by leaving attackers up and try to capitalise on the advantage, or send more bodies back to stymie the potential counter-attack?
Jurrien Timber took control, barking instructions: Arsenal decided to match Chelsea, with Martin Zubimendi, Eberechi Eze, and Declan Rice all staying back.
Zubimendi and Rice took care of Gusto and Delap around the half-way line, while Eze stood near Hato on Chelsea’s left wing roughly two-thirds of the way towards it.
The surprise certainly confused Arsenal: it took Noni Madueke all of 31 seconds to take his corner kick from the moment the Chelsea men dashed forward.
‘I quite like that,’ said Gary Neville on commentary. ‘It’s like an ambush. They don’t half look like they’ve not got a lot of defenders in there though.’
William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes are Arsenal’s biggest threat from set-pieces, so you expect them to stay up, but it is interesting that the Gunners left all of their defensive players up; Timber and Piero Hincapie joined them on the attack.
If Chelsea had managed to counter-attack, Mikel Arteta would have been relying on his midfield trio to deal with it.
As it happened, with plenty more space in the box, Arsenal almost punished their visitors.
Madueke delivered the ball into the middle of the six-yard area, and Hincapie rose to head it, but it rebounded off Wesley Fofana to go out for another corner.
Chelsea repeated their routine, and this time Trevoh Chalobah, who was the first man, headed the ball away after a couple of attempts.
This was Chelsea’s chance to show if they could counter-attack, but the Gunners stifled it.
Eze won the crucial race on the left flank, beating Hato to the ball. He had always been favourite to it because the 27-year-old gambled by standing goalside of Hato before the corner was taken.
If Chalobah had managed a more convincing, long-range clearance beyond the half-way line, Hato would have been in the driving seat to meet the ball first.
Thanks to Eze’s intervention, Arsenal were able to work the ball to Hincapie, who tested Robert Sanchez with a curling effort towards the far corner with his left foot.
His save rebounded to Gabriel, but the centre-back’s first touch was clumsy and the ball rolled out for a goal kick.
They were Arsenal’s only two corners in the match, so it is hard to tell much. Chelsea took a more conventional approach to defending free-kicks.
Both of the corners led to chances – the first directly, the second indirectly – so there is a case for saying that Chelsea’s swashbuckling enterprise didn’t pay off.
However, the tactic clearly disoriented Arsenal and left them vulnerable to a counter-attack, so it at least gives food for thought for other teams.
