Defeat is defeat, but when you face the champions in their own stadium, how you lose matters.On their four previous Premier League visits to the Emirates, Chelsea had been beaten by an aggregate score of 11-2.That run included a trip in May 2023 when interim manager Frank Lampard’s side were 3-0 down by the 34th minute. It included his successor Mauricio Pochettino challenging the players to prove they were more than “Cole Palmer FC” in April 2024, only to take a 5-0 drubbing. It included a 1-0 defeat in March 2025 in which Enzo Maresca’s team were cautious to the point of timidity, and a 2-1 loss under Liam Rosenior 12 months later where they were twice outmuscled at set pieces before Pedro Neto killed any hope of a comeback with a brainless red card.Not part of that sequence is the second leg of last season’s Carabao Cup semi-final in February when, despite travelling to north London 3-2 down, Rosenior lined Chelsea up with five at the back in an attempt to stay in the tie before bringing on the attacking threats of Palmer and Estevao in the 60th minute. It was not a bad plan, but it was a brazen admission of Arsenal’s superiority (and ended in another defeat, the home side scoring the game’s only goal in second-half stoppage time).New manager Xabi Alonso made no such concessions on Sunday, despite Arsenal being stronger than ever. Counterpart Mikel Arteta’s team are buttressed by the validation of becoming Premier League champions for the first time in over 20 years, and their defence has carried an aura of impregnability into the new campaign even without the injured William Saliba at centre-back.Chelsea’s match-winning strength against Fulham and Brighton in the season’s two prior league games was their high-powered attack. In that sense, Alonso’s decision to lean into his front three against Arsenal too was logical, but it also served a grander philosophical purpose for what he is trying to build.Any team can be caught cold from a set piece, as Arsenal were for Chelsea’s goal in the first 77 seconds, and there was an element of serendipity to the ball dropping within easy volleying reach of scorer Morgan Rogers. But that moment doesn’t happen if the visitors don’t push six players into the penalty area to contest a free kick, with Rogers and Palmer, two of their best finishers, loitering poised to strike just outside it.“We didn’t want to sit deep from the first minute and to wait and to make a long game,” Alonso said in his post-match press conference. “We wanted to be active, we wanted to be protagonists in the pressing, sometimes to go higher, sometimes lower, to have good possession. And we have done many things right.”Chelsea spent long stretches of the first half in survival mode as Arsenal roared onto the front foot after that shock opener, conjuring furious flurries of pressure from open play and set pieces. Kai Havertz’s equaliser on 25 minutes felt inevitable, but once it was 1-1 the game found a highly entertaining equilibrium thanks to the undimmed attacking ambition of Alonso’s team.Rogers celebrates the early opener against Arsenal (Adrian Dennis / AFP via Getty Images)Goalkeeper Emi Martinez floated a ball over Ezri Konsa to Rogers, who exchanged passes with Joao Pedro before shifting sharply onto his right foot and whipping a shot just wide of David Raya’s far post. Romeo Lavia forced a turnover on the halfway line and Reece James fed Joao Pedro for an audacious shot attempt from 45 yards. In first-half added time, Neto led a lightning break, cut inside from the right and struck the foot of the post.In between, Arsenal had plenty of attacking joy, particularly when the slick positional rotations of their right flank poked at the weak spot on the left of Chelsea’s defence. Wesley Fofana was probably the best of the visiting centre-backs, but he could not help getting caught on the carousel as Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Ben White took turns to sneak into crossing positions.Chelsea have lapses of startling vulnerability out of possession, and while Odegaard’s winner early in the second half was decorated by a sublime Havertz dummy, the move which led to it was far too simple to settle a game of this quality. Lavia was pulled out of position, and converted full-back James failed to recognise the developing danger the way a natural midfield destroyer would have.It was the kind of gut punch that has precipitated an Arsenal rout in this fixture in recent history, or at least the consolidation of control. But Chelsea never wilted, never stopped pushing and probing for an equaliser, and almost found one in the final minutes when substitute Estevao’s wicked curler brought a world-class save out of Raya.Chelsea had 13 shots, a figure only managed once by a visiting team at the Emirates in the 19 Premier League matches last season. Yes, you’ll never sing that, and yes, some of those attempts were not particularly threatening (their overall xG of 0.39 is the lowest since Rosenior’s last game, against Brighton in April), but it is almost impossible to generate high-quality chances against Arsenal. Attacking ambition is often the best any opponents can hope to show.“We need to make it better, we need to learn from them, because this is the top level,” Alonso added. “When we have to play top level, we want to be as efficient and as accurate in all the phases of the game. But this is where we are; this is game three for us of this new phase that we are starting with Chelsea. I’m happy with the spirit and the attitude from the players.”That spirit manifested itself in a satisfying amount of London derby needle: Lavia getting in the face of White, Joao Pedro having a frank exchange of views with Myles Lewis-Skelly, Rogers letting Declan Rice know exactly what he thought of his England team-mate cynically tripping him off the ball.Many of Chelsea’s match-going supporters are old enough to remember their team regularly bullying Arsenal. That dynamic has flipped in the Arteta era, to the point where one of Alonso’s most important objectives in Sunday’s game was to shatter the inferiority complex that had seemingly developed in too many of his players.There were positive signs on that front at the Emirates. Chelsea are a long way from challenging Arsenal for the title, but losing like this offers a measure of reassurance that Alonso and his players are on the right path.