Defensively Abysmal Chelsea Face A Struggle To Even Get Top Four

The Italian suffered his most humiliating defeat as Blues boss as his side were woefully outclassed against their London rivals

Chelsea were humbled, humiliated and hounded at the Emirates Stadium in a 3-0 defeat by Arsenal causing them to slip to a now familiar early season, mid-table position.

Antonio Conte's side are eight points behind Pep Guardiola's electric Manchester City and have dropped to eighth, but it is the performances on the pitch, rather than the points gap, which proves that the title is nothing but a dream this season.
Only six Premier League games in and things look dire for Conte, with his defence crumbling under the slightest of pressure, while they had to wait until the 83rd minute to get even a shot on target as they were completely overrun in midfield.

Roman Abramovich labelled top four as his minimum expectation for Conte at the start of the season, but even that must be in doubt as Chelsea were well-beaten by a team who have made getting into the Champions League their specialty.

The only Chelsea player who walked off the pitch with any of his reputation intact was Diego Costa, who battled for territory and chased down loose long balls with the Blues' short passing game being non-existent.

Thibaut Courtois was berating his defence while Gary Cahill was pointing fingers back at his goalkeeper as they looked clueless against runs in behind as they struggled to close down or identify danger.

It was the same old story for Cahill, who was caught in possession for Arsenal's first goal as Alexis Sanchez opened the scoring all too easily, giving Chelsea an uphill struggle to even stay in the game.

Cahill was the worst of a shocking back line who are completely lacking in confidence and leadership without their captain John Terry despite the four defenders on the pitch having an average age of 30.

Defending is a team effort and the midfield showed practically no ability to track Arsenal's clever runners from midfield, even N'Golo Kante was overrun by the weight of expectation on his shoulders.

Nemanja Matic had a really poor game in the first half, winning only 37.5% of his duels, while Chelsea's magician and ex-Arsenal man, Cesc Fabregas, wasn't in the game at all.

Fabregas got his first league start for Chelsea this season after a good performance in the cup against Leicester, but he didn't get a look-in as his side failed to string more than two passes together and was humiliatingly hauled off in the 54th minute.

That substitution will harm the confidence of a player who has been sidelined under the new regime and Conte will have to do some soul searching to find a new, winning formula.

Arsenal are a club with stability and have improved in the last transfer window while Chelsea are in a world of uncertainty. Off the pitch, Conte will point fingers back at his board, who failed to secure first-choice transfer targets, including Radja Nainggolan or Kalidou Koulibaly, who would have offered a huge improvement to his side's weaknesses.

The former Juventus boss debuted a formation with three at the back in the second half, as he experimented in the hope of stumbling upon an answer to a defence in crisis.

One clean sheet in his first eight games is not good enough for a team with Champions League ambitions while Conte's Chelsea also broke an unwanted record by being the first Chelsea team to concede three goals in a first half against Arsenal.

Chelsea conceded 53 goals last season, which is something Conte points to as part of the problem, but it is up to him to end these issues as he looks on course to potentially beat that horrific total.