Chelsea\u2019s trip to Arsenal ended with familiar problems determining the result. After a lively start and an equalizer, Chelsea conceded from a corner and then saw Pedro Neto sent off, leaving them a man short as Arsenal held on for a 2-1 win.<\/p>\n
The first half featured an overturned penalty hope when an appeal was waved away after David Raya made contact with Jo\u00e3o Pedro at a corner. Jurri\u00ebn Timber then headed Arsenal\u2019s second from another set play after the restart, a moment in which Robert S\u00e1nchez \u201cUtterly pathetic when attempting to command his area before Timber\u2019s header.\u201d S\u00e1nchez had been under pressure throughout and his lack of authority in the penalty area contributed to a nervous tone across Chelsea\u2019s play.<\/p>\n
Reece James was one of the few consistent positives, energizing Chelsea down his flank and supplying dangerous deliveries from open play and set pieces. His crosses created the chances that led to Chelsea\u2019s equalizer and he remained the team\u2019s leading creator on the day.<\/p>\n
Any realistic hope of a second equalizer evaporated when Pedro Neto received a second yellow with around 20 minutes remaining. He was booked for dissent shortly before receiving a second yellow for a late challenge. Neto is now the ninth different Chelsea player to be sent off this season, following in the footsteps of Wesley Fofana after last weekend\u2019s red card against Burnley. With ten men, Chelsea could not stage a comeback, although they had an effort ruled out for offside in stoppage time.<\/p>\n
The defeat leaves Chelsea sixth and three points behind Liverpool above them, a blow to their Champions League qualification ambitions.<\/p>\n
There were other individual contributions: Trevoh Chalobah impressed in one-v-one battles and Mois\u00e9s Caicedo provided key defensive interventions in midfield. Andrey Santos covered ground and made strong challenges. Rom\u00e9o Lavia made a return as a substitute.<\/p>\n
Match statistics underlined a competitive game: Chelsea had 59 percent possession to Arsenal\u2019s 41 percent, expected goals of 1.05 to Arsenal\u2019s 1.13 and fewer shots on target, three to Arsenal\u2019s five. Fouls committed were 14 for Chelsea and 11 for Arsenal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea slipped to a 2-1 defeat after Pedro Neto’s red card, set-piece problems and errors. in north<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[944,1140,1089],"class_list":["post-7176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-andrey-santos","tag-caicedo","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176","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=7176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}