Chelsea made the short journey across the English capital to the Emirates Stadium, home of league leaders Arsenal, in what proved to be an enthralling yet poor quality league clash.
Arsenal opened the scoring with a clever William Saliba header that deflected helplessly off full Premier League debutant Mamadou Sarr and into the Chelsea net. However, a Reece James corner, minutes into added time of the first half was accidently nodded by Piero Hincapie into his own net to level the tie.
Chelsea carried this momentum into the second half, however, despite taking control of the game, Jurrien Timber found the net beyond the flailing arms of Robert Sanchez to mark a third goal from a corner in the space of only 45 minutes and to grant the home side the lead.
To add to Chelsea’s dismay, Pedro Neto saw a second yellow card only minutes after his first yellow to bring Chelsea crashing down to ten men for the final 20 minutes of the game.
Fortunately, this appeared to have little impact on Chelsea’s determination and five minutes into added time, after a parried João Pedro bicycle kick, substitute Liam Delap slotted home an extremely late equaliser, only for the offside flag to be raised in denial of the visitors and conclude the game.
Disciplinary issue ongoing
A change in management has seen no change in discipline as **Pedro Neto**’s second half dismissal marked Chelsea’s ninth red card of the season.
A rash challenge on Gabriel Martinelli, only two minutes after a silly first yellow card for dissent marked the end of Neto’s game and Chelsea’s comeback hopes.
Liam Rosenior responded to the disciplinary issue with “You can fine players, it's not about punishment, it's about finding the reason why. I don't think these players are worried in that moment if they are going to get fines. I know the record isn't great. We've had two in two games. It's something deep lying we need to get to the bottom of. If we can get to the bottom of those things, we can achieve great things.”
“Dissent is a frustrating one for any player to get a yellow card for. I think Joao Pedro was fouled about five times in the first 10 minutes and didn't get a thing. I'm not blaming the referee for our defeat, but frustration builds up”
*“We need to do something for sure. I need to speak to the coaching staff. It's not acceptable. We've caused our own issues in the last two games. If we don't eradicate this, this will be the thing that costs us.*”
Improved Delap performance
In recent games, **Liam Delap**’s performances have begun to frustrate Chelsea fans, especially with his lack of end product.
The Englishman, who signed from Ipswich this summer for £30 million has picked up only two goals in 25 appearances for the Blues, saw an improvement in today's substitute appearance.
Despite coming on late in the closing stages of the match, Liam held up the ball really well and scored what would have been a last-minute equaliser had João Pedro not been ruled offside in the buildup.
Chelsea fans will hope that this marks a positive change in performances for the 23 year-old striker whilst in a Chelsea shirt.
James shines under pressure
The Chelsea skipper was instrumental from the right back position today, making easy work of Martinelli and dominating both in and out of possession.
Ranking as Chelsea's highest rated player in todays game, Reece never fails to disappoint against Chelsea's fierce London rivals, stepping up when his side needs him most.
A true Blue, Reece will be a crucial asset in Chelsea's Champions League qualification hopes.
Defending set pieces
Both goals that Chelsea conceded this afternoon came from Arsenal’s notorious corner set pieces.
If Chelsea could have defended these corners then statistically the Blues would have walked away from the Emirates with three points in the bank and having seriously upset their North London rivals’ title hopes.
When asked about his opinion on the situation, Rosenior responded “*I’m learning about the group. The actual scheme hasn’t changed up until this week, it’s something that has come into our game that is costing us.*”