Gallowgate Toon

Produced the best bit of quality in the game. The moment it left his foot you knew it was a fantastic cross. Sublime.

Ultimately, pretty comfortable. What a goal - cross & header imperious. Arteta has built an incredibly fucking dull team.

Flawless, man. Developing into an unbelievable player.

It's a bit strange as they're obviously a very good team with a more than decent chance of taking all 3 points tomorrow but they don't really strike fear, if that makes sense.

Personally, I like the signs of how we've been using him and Bruno since City. The midfield was obviously not great at Stamford Bridge, but I thought it functioned well generally against City, Everton, and Brighton. We saw some changes in some build-up shape where they'd both drop back on occasion, and Tonali sometimes rotated into the deeper spot against both Brighton & Everton with Bruno pushing up. We also played 4-4-2 in phases as well with them both as the CMs and Joelinton at LM. If we play 4-3-3, it's fine that they can rotate into that deeper spot depending on the game/circumstance against most teams. They have some overlapping qualities but have some vastly different strengths in the role. Last night probably showed we can be a bit bolder with rotating them going forward. I do think it'd help Bruno generally to reduce his responsibilities for a bit, he's had to carry a lot of things for us for years now. Lewis Hall brings a fairly big shift to our options to build up from the back. He's decently like-for-like with Trippier in terms of style but he's on the left so we have more balanced routes out of the defence than we've had before imo. It was very Tripps/Schar before. Botman is good on the ball but I wouldn't say that progressive, and Burn's LB stint was much more tactical than anything else. This might mean we don't have to be quite as reliant on the midfield to do as much heavy lifting when trying to build play so we can have more flexibility to push Bruno up.

I really like what he can bring; like Burn, he has his uses depending on the opposition. A bunch of small, quick, fairly weak forwards is good fodder for him due to his athleticism, but what about powerful strikers? I can't see him doing as good a job as Burn did against Haaland when we go into low block mode, for example.

It's a good sign for our league campaign going forward that he got a good runout in a serious game, like, even if it just helps to preserve Isak a bit more. Chelsea rotated but that team was worth about, what, £600m? It wasn't like we chucked him on for 30 against a lower league side.

He's just a lovely footballer. Touch, passing, shimmies etc.

Some fantastic raw attributes to be a nuisance we can trust more, at the very least. He's a lot more up for scrappy play than Isak so he at least offers something different.

Fernandez is outrageously average for them. You can tell he's evidently a good footballer but he's so ineffectual. Cucurella is a gobby little shite as well.

When he tore through the middle of them

Did the simple stuff very well (bar one passage of play) and his speed off the ball is a real boon in that role at times. Some fantastic set pieces too.

In the BTS content, he seems to be this obsessively competitive character. On the pitch, this doesn't seem to come out enough. He's passive/lax too often in games. By contrast, Jackson is a terrier.

When Almiron is RW, Tonali is probably instructed to help provide width more than when Murphy starts. I thought he was growing into the game when he was taken off, we started to see more of the one-touch passing & moving.

I was sure he was going to go for the hybrid 3-5-2 that he's wheeled out a few times this year considering how much they love to find pockets. He went way more aggressive which I was surprised at. They had 2 really pressurised periods but I thought we were fairly controlled aside from that and competed OK. He's not infallible at all - I do think he should've switched Tonali and Bruno earlier on - but he's once again been let down by some really shite play from senior players.

Takes accountability and tries to force the issue. Also has some real quality to go with it.

Sadly, he's not currently looking like the 'keeper he was.

Seething. Gave it away.

Chelsea have been shit this half as well, in the main. Absolutely infuriating we gave up that pathetic goal.

Absolutely disgraceful half from Isak. He's not playing like a leader at all. I expected him to make the next step this season and he's gone the opposite way. Really disappointing.

It does feel like quite a weak reason, like. Players play through niggles and tightness all the time.

We actually picked up more points than Villa in the second half of last season. Emery is good, obviously, but the demands placed on squads is high. I expect they'll still be challenging for a European spot at the season's end though.

I'm not confident of a result but I do think we'll put in a good performance and actually score from open play. 2-2.

To be fair, Barnes has 2 goals in 4 starts this season, 1 from a sub appearance. He's also not had a run of more than 3 games starting for us ever, iirc. He's not really had a fair crack. He also assisted Gordon for his only open play goal this season (where he was playing RW). BIG hasn't really been given a chance to develop.

Watched it back and there was loads of good in there for the first hour, so frustrating we couldn't make one of the many opportunities count. I didn't realise the Tonali through ball to Isak was actually onside - he should've done a lot better there. The Willock sub definitely weakened us, we should've carried on with the original 3 for at least another 10 mins, imo. The legs looked good and there was a strong balance.