This was a match that seemed to start grinding to a halt pretty much from kick-off as both teams congealed into a familiar reflection of their more notorious strengths and weaknesses. Arsenal were fluent but lacked a killer edge. Chelsea were full of guile and gristle. Towards the end of what was an absorbing enough room temperature 0-0 draw Arsenal’s fans sang: “Boring, boring Chelsea,” while the away corner responded: “We are top of the league,” producing between them a real life summary of the tediously irresolvable social media debate about style versus substance, icing on the cake versus medals on the table.

There were plenty of virtues on display. Arsenal might have snatched the game at the end. John Terry showed why he has been the most influential player in the Premier League this year. And Cesc Fàbregas left the pitch just before the end to loud boos, confirming over 89 minutes not only the exemplary grudge-holding capacity of English football fans, but also the Cesc‑flavoured deficiencies in at least one of these teams.

One thing can be put to bed after his much-trailed return to the Emirates. Arsenal have missed a few things this season but he isn’t one of them.

There is surely no elite level Premier League player who offers such an uneven contribution. With 16 minutes gone at the Emirates, Fàbregas played the pass of the game, looking up and lifting the ball 40 yards down the inside left channel into the path of Oscar. His shot was dinked just wide of the onrushing David Ospina, who flattened the Brazilian while somehow failing to concede a penalty kick.

Either side of that, Fàbregas was simply himself, a player of great, gossamer gifts, a half-speed craftsman, and a midfielder who manages to be both pilot and passenger on the same flight. With six minutes gone, he was bypassed for the first time in central midfield, Alexis Sánchez and Aaron Ramsey funnelling the ball forward down the flank with Fàbregas a whirling Dalek in their wake. Ten minutes later he was brushed aside not once but twice on Arsenal’s left flank, before finally misplacing a pass to huge gleeful boos. An in-and-out opening 20 minutes ended with a booking for diving in the area, Fàbregas hanging his leg out hopefully as he passed Santi Cazorla but ending up tumbling over thin air.

If there were plenty of boos here, there has also been a recurrent suggestion that Arsène Wenger blundered by not bringing Fàbregas back. Albeit presumably only from those who haven’t seen Arsenal play this season. If there’s one thing this team doesn’t need it is another physically lightweight passing midfielder. And yet even in a title-bound season there is a case to be made that Fàbregas isn’t really the player Chelsea need either: a midfielder who for all his creative incision embodies Chelsea’s obvious missing quality, a lack of real drive and presence in the heart of the team.

When something more assertive was needed at Stamford Bridge against Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea’s midfield was instead outrun and outfought by a team down to 10 men away from home. Too often Fàbregas has been invisible since the new year, or bypassed completely when Chelsea play on the break. Eight minutes before half-time here, Willian, Eden Hazard and Ramires constructed a lovely thrust down the left that led to the Brazilian almost prodding the ball past Ospina. At the time Fàbregas was 40 yards away, chugging gamely upfield like a three-legged dog.

On this evidence it isn’t hard to see why Fàbregas’s peers didn’t vote him into the Professional Footballers’ Association’s team of the year. A midfielder who will only pass the ball on, who has no burst of speed to offer another option is always easier to play against. And so he has become a containable high-class player, a kind of footballing Stephen Hawking, the trundling mega‑brain in need of a supporting entourage to wheel him into place.

There was a change for Fàbregas in the second half, Didier Drogba’s introduction in place of Oscar leaving Fàbregas in the No10 role and Chelsea with surely the most grandly immobile title-bound attack in Premier League history. But it was enough to see out the game with strength in reserve and bring the title a step closer. What happens next may be just as interesting.

José Mourinho, the arch-pragmatist, knows better than anyone the qualities of his players. Fàbregas has been good enough to provide a major push towards another domestic title. But you wonder how long before Mourinho concedes publicly that perhaps Barcelona were right – that at the higher level, as the fulcrum of a genuinely top class, Champions League-chasing team, Fàbregas is simply not mobile enough, not versatile enough, destined perhaps to spend the final third of his career as a Mozart of the elite second-rankers. Chelsea will take their title, to which Fàbregas has made a hugely effective contribution. But both will perhaps expect a little more next season.