Petulance means Chelsea's top-five bid may not stack up

here are thousands of details that go into determining the outcome of every game, every season, every career, and yet sometimes everything can turn on a moment. If Chelsea fail to qualify for the Champions League this season, it will have been for a host of reasons, but one incident, not entirely fairly, will stand out: the moment 10 minutes before half-time yesterday when Nicolas Jackson stumbled, righted himself, looked over his shoulder at Sven Botman and then thrust his right forearm into the Dutchman's face.

- Jonathan Wilson

As the wheels of VAR slowly turned, Enzo Maresca, wearing a salmon-pink sweatshirt that gave him the air of a dad on his way to B&Q on a Saturday morning, turned to the bench, spread his arms and swore with a slight shake of his head. How could they be out of the specific bracket he needed? His diatribe at the fourth official felt performative: in his heart he knew he probably should have bought the necessary hardware more than five minutes before starting to put the shelf up, and that Jackson was bang to rights.

Cole Palmer, whose capacity to wander unflappably through life continues to astound, came to the bench for a drink and shrugged, apparently entirely unconcerned, as a sub asked what he thought. Although four Chelsea players surrounded the referee John Brooks as the players left the field at half-time, the biggest scandal of the first 45 minutes was that Moisés Caicedo had escaped a booking.

Yet, while Jackson's red card was an obviously decisive moment, Chelsea played rather better in the second half when they were down to 10 than they had with 11 in the first. Nick Pope made key saves from Marc Cucurella and Enzo Fernandez and there was a distinct anxiety around the stadium before Bruno Guimarães's deflected second. Which made it all the stranger that Chelsea were so poor before half-time.