For long, long, periods on Wednesday, it felt like being one of these nights for Chelsea as they confronted Watford at Vicarage Road.
A identify-chasing powerhouse heads some miles up the street to stand one of the division's strugglers on a bitter wintry weather's night time and - lo and behold - they get beat; we've all seen it earlier than, up and down the soccer pyramid.
Indeed, Antonio Conte's Chelsea were thumped 4-1 in the identical fixture on a Monday nighttime in February 2018.
From minute one Thomas Tuchel's facet regarded destined to suffer a comparable destiny. Watford commenced the sport like men possessed, retaining their visitors penned in with a constant press. It changed into a tactic that almost yielded two desires inside five minutes.
First, Joao Pedro noticed a low shot destined for the bottom corner blocked through Trevoh Chalobah, earlier than Edouard Mendy changed into forced right into a flying save to tip the ball across the put up after Cesar Azpilicueta inadvertently deflected a pass toward his personal intention.
Shortly afterwards the sport become suspended and the players have been taken off the field after a supporter suffered a cardiac arrest inside the stand. Thankfully they were stabilised earlier than being taken to health facility, but now not even the 35-minute pause become enough to hose down the Hornet's technique.
Even when Mason Mount gave Chelsea the lead in opposition to the run of play 29 minutes in, this did no longer experience like a suit that the Blues could cross directly to win.
To that point it had been an exceedingly disjointed overall performance from the traffic - a end result of heavy rotation and a raft of injuries in the midfield that intended Saul Niguez and Ruben Loftus-Cheek started within the centre. Neither turned into on their game, surrendering the ball and being eaten alive within the midfield battle with Moussa Sissoko.
At the returned, Watford's press noticed Chalobah and Antonio Rudiger shed their typical swagger and regularly squander possession or nervously play backwards, while others have been truly now not as much as the physical conflict that the likes of Sissoko, William Troost-Ekong and Tom Cleverley have been relishing.
Almost inevitably the equaliser arrived shortly before 1/2-time, and it changed into a aim that laid bare Chelsea's deficiencies on the night time. Sissoko latched onto Loftus-Cheek as he tried to pirouette inside the center of the park, stealing the ball and using into opposition territory. He fed Emmanuel Dennis, who was afforded the gap to squeeze the ball thru Rudiger's legs and into the corner.
