These are the games one suspects Rafael Benitez secretly prizes above all: a sceptical fanbase, the odds against him and a famous opponent with flaws to exploit – which was precisely the story of how an Everton side missing 12 first-team players came to get a draw away at the European champions.

It was a Benitez classic, built on stubborn defence from a team that included a centre-forward making his debut and a 19-year-old goalscorer, Jarrad Branthwaite, whose last goal was for Carlisle United. This was a game in which Everton should never have got a point, after a first half when they barely even had the ball, and yet one could not help but admire how belief grew and a shrewd tactical approach delivered an unexpected result.

By the end Benitez was applauding the away end. He had gone there to congratulate his players but there is also a sense of theatre about this wily old manager – he knows when to push home his advantage. This was one occasion when even Goodison Park’s most militant anti-Benitez lobby had to admire the performance. As Thomas Tuchel turned disconsolately to shake his opponent’s hand at the end, he knew he had seen the best of Benitez’s strategising.

Jordan Pickford was Everton’s man of the match, although Chelsea had plenty of chances to score more than the solitary second-half Mason Mount goal. They had three Covid-19 absentees of their own – Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner and Callum Hudson-Odoi – as well as the long-term injured Ben Chilwell who also tested positive. There is no doubting it has been a bleak December for Tuchel.

Including the draw with Manchester United at the end of November, this is a run of just two wins in Chelsea’s last five league games. At Anfield, the home fans cheered the Everton victory. A gap of three points has opened between Chelsea in third and Liverpool in second place and then Manchester City one point further ahead. There will be many tougher tests for Tuchel’s players than this side of Everton occasionals.

As things stand, Chelsea’s game against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday is still on and as the season begins to fall apart amid the Covid surge, Chelsea have to win at Molineux. Tuchel said that he could not believe his team had been punished having conceded “absolutely nothing” in terms of chances until the free-kick for the Everton equaliser. “We could be sitting here talking about 3-0 and it would be a fair result,” Tuchel added. “A freak result.”

He did not argue that the game should have been postponed but he is without “six to seven players”, he said. “I would be more concerned if we were totally out of form and if we were conceding the first goals and struggling to come back.”

As for Everton, the list of absentees was long and painful, including Luca Digne, Richarlison, Andros Townsend, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Yerry Mina, Tom Davies, Demarai Gray, Fabian Delph, Salomon Rondon and Cenk Tosun. The Brazilian Allan was passed fit for the bench only, as was captain Seamus Coleman, but neither came on. There were two substitute goalkeepers on the seven-strong bench, the second of which was 38-year-old Andy Lonergan.

For debutant centre-forward Ellis Simms, just 20 and his experience of senior football a single loan at Blackpool, there was an hour battling with Antonio Rudiger and Thiago Silva. When he came off Simms was replaced by another academy boy, the 18-year-old Lewis Dobbin. By the end, Tyler Onyango, another 18-year-old academy graduate, was on the pitch.

Asked about the pressure he had been under from Everton fans, Benitez characteristically responded with an answer about the players. “This group can make mistakes but also they have shown character, commitment and good spirit,” he said. “I remember fans talking about what happened in the past. But since the first game of the season the connection between the fans and the players has always been the same. We have had games where we understand the frustration of the fans, but from day one the players have shown commitment and spirit.”

There were many opportunities spurned by a Chelsea team that was so dominant on the ball that Everton only had 19 per cent possession before the break. Mount missed arguably the best of them all, a disguised pass slipped through the away defence by Rudiger that the young Englishman failed to nudge past Pickford. Jorginho’s early ball down the inside right channel should have been finished by Reece James.

This was to be the 10th game of the season when Chelsea had taken the lead and then given it up. “You have to be careful because it is easy to point the finger,” Tuchel said later, wondering if it was possible to over-scrutinise these kinds of games, “analysing and finding patterns that were not there”. But he pulled himself up and said that lessons would be learned. “We will not look away.”

Chelsea scored when Everton were caught with midfielders the wrong side of the ball and Mount dispatched James’ ball past Pickford at his near post. The siege was finally broken and you might have assumed that was game over. Instead, there was a new freedom about Everton. The impressive Anthony Gordon won a free-kick on the left and struck it to the far post where it was met by Branthwaite for the most unlikely of equalisers.