Chelsea's collapse is lowest point in topsy-turvy season

“This is Chelsea Football Club, not Cole Palmer Football Club,” Mauricio Pochettino declared on the eve of his side’s visit to Arsenal.

- JAMIE BRAIDWOOD

A little more than 24 hours later, the sight of Chelsea without their top scorer and player of the year was enough to empty the away end long before full-time of this humiliating, dispiriting, London derby thrashing at the Emirates. “I don’t want your shirt, I just want you to fight for ours,” a young boy pleaded in the away end. Chelsea failed, spectacularly, in their heaviest ever defeat to Arsenal.

As Pochettino said, the prospect of facing the Premier League leaders without Palmer was a good challenge for the rest of the Chelsea squad, a chance to show that they were more than a one-man team, to prove there was leadership in the ranks beyond the 22-year-old forward. Evidently, it was a challenge Chelsea were utterly incapable of rising to. Without Palmer, Chelsea returned to their lowly status as mid-table fodder. Yet perhaps even that is kind.

For Chelsea, it is difficult to pinpoint the most humbling image from this 5-0 defeat. If the sight of Kai Havertz scoring twice against his former club was not bad enough, flourishing as a false nine for the Gunners in a way he never managed at Stamford Bridge, perhaps it was the reminder that he was surplus to requirements while Mykhailo Mudryk, at £88m, was not. Arsenal were beaten to the signing of the Ukrainian but instead signed Leandro Trossard, who fired the opener.