Arsenal allowed a clear opportunity to turn into three points as they were held to a 1-1 draw by an undermanned Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The game was settled on fine margins: a first-half red card for Mois\u00e9s Caicedo handed Arsenal the initiative, but Trevoh Chalobah\u2019s second-half set-piece strike put the hosts ahead and Mikel Merino restored parity in the 59th minute after work from Bukayo Saka.<\/p>\n
The match was physical from the start, with several early bookings. A VAR review saw Anthony Taylor upgrade his original yellow to a straight red after Caicedo\u2019s challenge on Merino. By half-time five yellows and one red had been shown. Chalobah\u2019s goal came from a set piece; it was just Arsenal\u2019s second goal conceded this season from a corner.<\/p>\n
Arteta\u2019s side registered the greater share of possession and camped in the opposition half for extended periods, yet they struggled to convert control into clear chances. \u201cArsenal proceeded to dominate possession, but the Blues refused to go quietly,\u201d reads the match narrative, and the visitors finished with more yellow cards (six) than shots on target (four). Bukayo Saka delivered the decisive contribution to level the game, providing the assist for Merino\u2019s equaliser and recording his first Premier League assist of the year.<\/p>\n
Mikel Merino started in a makeshift forward role with Viktor Gy\u00f6keres kept on the bench. “Arteta opted to keep the returning Gy\u00f6keres on the bench to start the game, favouring the makeshift Mikel Merino. Likewise, Enzo Maresca named Cole Palmer as a substitute.” That selection gamble produced a point rather than three.<\/p>\n
Stamford Bridge remains a difficult venue for Mikel Arteta; Arsenal have now drawn their last three trips to Chelsea. The draw leaves Arsenal five points clear after Manchester City\u2019s win at the weekend, a notable outcome as a congested December approaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal left Stamford Bridge with a 1-1 draw after Caicedo’s red; Merino levelled in the 59th minute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190,172],"tags":[826,1140,199],"class_list":["post-4795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-caicedo","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}