Chelsea 2-2 Arsenal: Regrettable draw

Score
Chelsea:Palmer (15', pen), Mudryk (48')
Arsenal:Declan Rice (77'), Troussard (84')

The London derby between Chelsea and Arsenal was severely affected by heavy rain at Stamford Bridge. This greatly affected the performance of the Arsenal players, who were welcomed with good news by the return of star midfielder Bukyo Saka after missing the win over Man City last round.

Despite being the team with the more impressive form, Arsenal had the most stalemate match since the beginning of the campaign, when they encountered a Chelsea team with a very reasonable formation, in which the full-back duo Malo Gusto and especially Marc Cucurella played really impressively, blocking the two explosive players Gabriel Martinell and Bukayo Saka on the away team.

This caused Arsenal to go through the first 45 minutes without a single shot on target, and the most notable opportunity was Declan Rice's outside-of-the-foot shot that went wide of the post in the 20th minute.

With Chelsea, the home team entered the game very proactively by pushing up their formation to attack Arsenal.

In the 11th minute, Raheem Sterling crossed the ball very skillfully for Mykhailo Mudryk to head the ball and it hit the hand of center-back William Saliba. Referee Chris Kavanagh, after reviewing VAR, awarded Chelsea a penalty and young midfielder Cole Palmer easily defeated David Raya to open the score.

After the goal, Chelsea changed their playing style by shrinking their formation, proactively playing safely in their own half before organizing extremely fast counter-attacks. This helped The Blues have less possession of the ball but created many dangerous opportunities that Palmer, Enzo Fernandes and Gusto all had the chance to increase the score but failed to take advantage of.

Entering the second half, when the fans were still not settled in their positions, the surprise came when Chelsea scored their second goal in the 48th minute. Starting from a very quick counter-attack on the left wing, Gallagher passed the ball to Mudryk near the touchline and the Ukrainian striker's faulty cross accidentally became a tricky shot that defeated goalkeeper Raya, who was standing a bit high above his goal.

The score could have been 3-0 in the 57th minute when goalkeeper Raya had a risky pass in front of the penalty area that was intercepted by Palmer, but fortunately the Spanish goalkeeper was able to make up for his mistake by blocking the shot afterwards.

Raya had a chance to make amends, but his Spanish teammate Robert Sanchez on Chelsea's side did not have that chance. In the 77th minute, when Chelsea were playing very well against Arsenal, Sanchez had a situation where the ball was passed straight to Declan Rice's feet and the England international took advantage of it by finishing from more than 30 meters into the empty goal.

The nightmare for Chelsea and Sanchez did not end, because just 7 minutes later Arsenal had an equalizer. From a very precise cross from Saka, the super sub who had just come on as a substitute, Leandro Trossard quickly got down and finished with one touch from a narrow angle, defeating Sanchez relatively easily. This was also the last goal of the match, both teams left the field with only 1 point.

With this result, Arsenal missed the opportunity to take the top spot, standing at 2nd place on the rankings with 21 points, equal to Man City. Meanwhile, Chelsea temporarily rose to 9th place with 12 points.

Line-up
Chelsea:Sanchez, Gusto, Silva, Colwill, Cucurella, Gallagher, Caicedo, Fernandez, Palmer (James 84'), Sterling (Madueke 84'), Mudryk (Jackson 66')
Arsenal:Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko (Tomiyasu 46'), Rice, Jorginho (Smith Rowe 68'), Odegaard (Havertz 78'), Saka, Martinelli (Trossard 78'), Jesus (Nketiah 68')