'Chelsea can take huge confidence from the game'

Chelsea forward Fran Kirby says the evidence of the players "buying into" Liam Rosenior's methodology was clear in Tuesday's Carabao Cup semi-final defeat by Arsenal.

The Blues lined up with three centre-backs and restricted the Gunners to very few chances before a double attacking substitution on 59 minutes, with Cole Palmer and Estevao Willian replacing Jorrel Hato and Liam Delap, to move back to a more familiar shape and push for an equaliser.

However, they could not find a goal and were eventually caught out on the counter-attack to lose 1-0 on the night with the last kick.

"I think Chelsea can take huge confidence from the game," Kirby told BBC Radio 5 Live's Football Daily podcast.

"They really nullified Arsenal and that's not easy to do, especially at the Emirates.

"Rosenior hasn't had long to work on this, players are playing out of position and having to learn where to be in and out of possession.

"But, you could see they have been working on their shape and their press. They reduced Arsenal to a lot of long balls as they struggled to find their pockets around how compact Chelsea were.

"Malo Gusto was coming into midfield, Enzo Fernandez was moving out to the left - these are not their natural positions so they had to learn.

"The effort levels that the players put in - you can see the way Rosenior wants them to press aggressively and run back for each other is starting to rub off on them.

"You can see the players are buying into it, there were no arms being thrown in the air or complaining at each other.

"You look at Fernandez - he covered every blade of grass with his effort levels out of possession and then towards the end of the game was getting involved in possession and driving the team forward.

"Those are the players you want your other players to look at as an example and the ones you want in your team."

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