On the night, when Arsenal’s players were needed to stand up and be counted, they delivered a very poor performance.

With six games to play, Arsenal are six points behind Chelsea and have a goal difference to catch up of 17. So, Arsenal would need to gain seven points on Chelsea in six games, which will not happen. Second place, in theory, is still accessible, as the gap with Manchester City is only three points. We are playing them away on Matchday 21. But we have a goal difference of 12 to catch up first.

Therefore, the first thing is to make sure of finishing in third place. It means getting 13 points in six games as Manchester United are trailing by nine points and have seven remaining games to play. Finishing in third place again would be disappointing and would raise some questions about the coaching staff.

If we come back to Friday night’s game, the question that comes to mind is why such a poor performance? How come the team that had 12 days to prepare since the Emirates game against Spurs ended up performing so badly. Was the game plan wrong? Was the starting XI selected the wrong one?

There were some interesting choices: Blackstenius, who has done well so many times when coming on as a sub, getting a start ahead of Russo. Did she deserve a chance? Yes, and clearly, it was also the plan to stretch the Chelsea defence. It did not work out well in the end because the attacking quality was not there. Players need to be accurate and speedy in their passing in the final third, and it did not happen in the first half. Blackstenius was then withdrawn at half-time, though not due to her own fault.

Starting McCabe ahead of Fox was also an option that we can understand because Fox came back from the Gold Cup late in the week and had jet lag to deal with. The same can be said of Foord and Catley who travelled to Uzbekistan and Australia for their Olympic qualifiers and clearly had some heavy legs. Catley lasted 45 minutes before being subbed by Fox, and Foord got 57 minutes as Lacasse took over.

We can question if getting Lacasse on after 45 minutes would have been a good idea, but doing four half-time substitutions would have been risky, even if the game was already gone as you don’t come back from 3-0 down at Chelsea.

The midfield three was as expected with the double pivot Pelova-Wälti and Kim Little at number 10. Again, that midfield trio had performed very well in previous games throughout the season but did not work out on the day, in and out of possession. There was no real balance in the team, and the space between the lines was too big. It meant that Chelsea that played without a number 9 as their three starters were all injured, played with a double false 9 James-Nüsken that spent their whole game between our defence and midfield, just navigating in the gaps that were wide open.

I am still puzzled as to why our defensive shape was so disorganised and why we were regularly caught in transition with no adjustments. Everybody knows how Chelsea operates: they win the ball in the middle third and hits you hard on the break. It was really bizarre to see the whole team not playing well; sometimes we can get away with having a couple of players having an off game, but not when seven or eight of the players are poor. You won’t get away with it against Chelsea.

You have to wonder what went into the players’ minds to make them play so badly. Did the sock incident impact them? Jonas Eidevall says no. What we know is we will be playing Chelsea again in the Continental Cup final on Sunday, 31 March. Players and staff need to find something to be able to compete on the day and win the only trophy available to us to save our season.

I can certainly see four players will be changed from those who started at Stamford Bridge and hopefully a better tactic will be selected and implemented in our order to have a remake of last year’s final that ended up in a triumph for the underdog. The game on Friday was a collective failure and it is tiring to read the so called fans blaming their favourite scapegoats for the defeat, be it the manager or certain players.

The 6k away fans that attended the game were a credit to the team and it is certainly impressive to think that we had more away fans at that game that fans for our home games at Borehamwood FC.

Next game will be Aston Villa at Villa Park on Sunday 24 March at 6.45pm live on tv and three points will be a must.