Chelsea’s late fightback leaves Arsenal with plenty to ponder

It was heartbreak for the home crowd at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday as Arsenal allowed their arch-rivals, Chelsea, to muster two late goals and register a 2-1 win in what was Mikel Arteta’s home debut in the Premier League as a manager. They had themselves and a refereeing decision to blame for the defeat. 

Arsenal started strongly and denied Chelsea space to operate and time on the ball. It was all Gunners in the first twenty minutes as Frank Lampard’s men struggled to take the ball off the hosts. 

13 minutes into the game, it was Aubameyang who broke the deadlock and pushed the Gunners into the lead. The marking during a Mesut Ozil corner-kick was catastrophic as Emerson lost the Arsenal forward inside the box. Callum Chambers flicked the incoming delivery towards the far post where the Gabonese striker headed into the net to leave the home crowd ecstatic. 

Lampard and his assistant Jodi Morris looked clueless on the sidelines as Chelsea spent the entire first-half as the inferior team. Despite holding on to the lead, Arsenal saw Chelsea mount pressure on them as the first half ended. Lampard must be credited for identifying the problem areas in his team and acting on it immediately. Lampard’s move to replace the ineffective Emerson with Jorginho before the break proved to be decisive. 

The tide started to turn slowly yet notably as the second-half progressed. Arsenal’s energetic start meant that they were running out of gas and Chelsea capitalised.

Having already been on a yellow card, Jorginho cynically brought down Matteo Guendouzi near the halfway line and escaped a sending off. Adding insult to injury, the midfielder poked in a Mason Mount cross from the left just six minutes later after Bernd Leno let the ball through his gloves in what was a grave error by the keeper. That was the German’s seventh goalkeeping error that led to a goal – the most by any player since last season. 

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It took four minutes more for the Blues to complete their comeback, this time from a quick counter. Tammy Abraham charged at a panicked Arsenal backline and released Willian to his right. The striker went on to receive the return before turning Shkodran Mustafi with ease and finding the back of the net. For the first time in the Premier League, Arsenal succumbed to a defeat after going into the break with a lead against Chelsea. 

After nearly 60 minutes of superiority, Arsenal had begun to look lifeless and let Chelsea back into the game. Arteta’s substitutions will also be a point for debate as he waited till the 76th minute before making his first unforced change. Moreover, Nicolas Pepe was given a mere four minutes after Chelsea equalised and were pressing high up the field in the last ten minutes.

The result leaves Arsenal at the 12th spot in the Premier League table with 24 points from 20 matches, their worst start to a season in more than 40 years. Mikel Arteta has a considerable job on his hands.