Jadon Sancho will go down in history as having been on the pitch at the Emirates Stadium. He was on the right-wing, dressed in blue, watching closely as a tepid game unfolded around him. Yet whether Sancho was actually involved as Chelsea produced another monotonous performance in attack was debatable. After all, failing to register a single touch in the Arsenal box did not exactly suggest that this was a player in possession of the personality to lift a team weakened by the absence of their most important forward.
This was the Sancho who drifted along at Manchester United, never justifying his £73m fee. He looked callow every time he thought about taking on Arsenal’s 18‑year‑old left‑back, Myles Lewis-Skelly. There was no mystery about why Sancho was nowhere near Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad. It was less that Lewis-Skelly won their battle after his first international call-up, more that there was never any prospect of Sancho having the wit, invention or speed to trouble the youngster.
