Héctor Bellerín salvaged a point for Arsenal in injury time, a fitting finale to a wonderful (and sometimes controversial) end-to-end encounter
Updated
Wed 3 Jan 2018 16.43 EST
First published on Wed 3 Jan 2018 13.30 EST
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Key events
FULL TIME: Arsenal 2-2 Chelsea
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that. The first half was entertaining enough, but what a second 45! On another day, with another ref, Arsenal could have had a man sent off; Chelsea may not have been awarded their penalty. But never mind the controversies. That was a rip-roaring game of football, the kind neither side deserved to lose. Magnificent fun. Chelsea stay in third; Arsenal remain in sixth. And we’ve still got two legs of the League Cup semi-final to come!
90 min +3: Chelsea should regain the lead! Morata is sent clear down the inside right. And for the third time this evening he fluffs a one on one! He smacks his shot into Cech. The rebound falls to Zappacosta, who smashes a hysterical drive onto the crossbar from 25 yards!
GOAL! Arsenal 2-2 Chelsea (Bellerin 90+2)
Yes they can! Ozil slips Bellerin into space down the right. Bellerin reaches the byline and rips into the box. He crosses long with men in the middle. No matter! Because the ball’s sent into the area again. Alonso’s clearing header is weak. It drops to Bellerin, to the right of the D. One sweet half volley, and it’s creamed into the top left!
90 min: “There’s only one team in London,” trill the visiting fans. On the Arsenal bench, Arsene Wenger hangs his head. He’s not had the breaks this week. There are four added minutes. Can the Gunners give their boss some late festive cheer?
88 min: Before the corner is taken, Walcott comes on for Chambers. The set piece leads to Mustafi hitting a fierce volley from the edge of the box. It’s heading towards the top right, but clanks into Cahill’s arm. No penalty, because that arm was tucked into his body, and the defender had no time to react anyway. That would have been some goal.
87 min: A lot of space for Welbeck down the right. He’s got Sanchez free in the middle, though his team-mate is offside. He’s forced to settle for a corner.
86 min: Arsenal respond by pressing Chelsea back. Maitland-Niles nearly finds Welbeck in the centre with a cross from the left, and there’s a little blast of pinball, but eventually the reigning champions clear their lines.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea (Alonso 84)
Willian, deep on the left, sprays a stunning pass wide right for Zappacosta, who twists the young Maitland-Niles inside and out. Zappacosta reaches the byline and slams a low cross into the centre, where Alonso clips a fine first-time shot across Cech and into the bottom left, six yards out and level with the right-hand post. A wonderful goal, and one that’s silenced the Emirates. What a turnaround this has been.
82 min: Bellerin turns on the jets to make space down the right. His cross is a tad too high for Welbeck in the centre. And then Hazard is replaced by Willian, to pantomime boos. Well, it’s still technically the festive season, after all.
80 min: Lacazette, who has run himself into the ground, is replaced by Welbeck.
78 min: Morata tears down the left again, only to be sent turf-wards by Bellerin. The referee waves play on, causing ironic cheers to ring around the stadium. It’s safe to say the home fans have been on a rolling boil since the penalty decision. Meanwhile here’s Mac Millings again: “I have one friend fewer than And We’re Off Again!’s Simon McMahon, so I sent a copy of the magnificent The Title to my Dad instead. I’d like to tell you he loved it, but I have not yet received a note of thanks, nor, indeed, the merest acknowledgement from him of its arrival. Perhaps he’s too engrossed in its marvelousness to express gratitude to his third-most disappointing child.”
76 min: Morata makes good down the left and very nearly finds Hazard in the middle. Cech smothers a fierce low cross with great skill.
75 min: Some admin: Ozil was booked while protesting the penalty award. “Wilshire really shouldn’t have been on the pitch with his dive, so I’ll give it to the Blues though that was a very soft pen,” opines Tim Penney.
73 min: Kante has a dig from the edge of the box. His shot takes a wicked deflection and only just sails wide of the left-hand post. Corner, nothing, etc., and so on.
71 min: Fabregas is replaced by Drinkwater. He gets a very generous ovation as he exits the stage.
70 min: And now Antonio Conte loses the place completely, as Morata misses another one on one, sent clean through by Fabregas. Morata drifts a little to the right, allowing Chambers to become an annoyance, then hoicks a shot, presumably meant for the top right, high and wide. Conte leaps around on the touchline, using words such as “eff” and “cee”. He really is not best pleased with his striker.
69 min: Arsene Wenger is in full Fume Mode. You can’t blame him, the week he’s had. A talking point, right there. Certainly not a great deal of contact between Hazard and Bellerin.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-1 Chelsea (Hazard 67 pen)
Hazard dribbles into the Arsenal box from the left. He chips the ball past the outstretched leg of Bellerin, and goes down very easily. That’s another Wenger-bothering decision, because there didn’t appear to be much contact. Hazard certainly went down looking for it. He gets up and strokes the ball into the left-hand side of the net, Cech having gone the other way.
65 min: Arsenal look in the mood to recreate those crazy five minutes against Liverpool. Lacazette and Sanchez buzz down the inside-right channel with much intent. Sanchez claps an effort towards the bottom right, but it’s tipped round the post. The corner comes to nothing.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Chelsea (Wilshere 63)
Arsenal triangulate back and forth along the front of the Chelsea box. Suddenly the ball squirts down the inside-left channel. Wilshere strides with great purpose into the box, and absolutely larrups an unstoppable shot into the top left. Courtois is beaten at his near post, but couldn’t do anything about it, such was the ferocity of the strike. The Emirates erupts!
62 min: Arsenal are on top now, first to everything. A crisp one-two between Ozil and Lacazette sends the former clear into the box down the left, but he can’t get the ball past Courtois. Never mind, because Maitland-Niles drifts down the left and earns a corner. From which...
60 min: Arsenal go into high-press mode, and pin Chelsea back. It’s a fine period of pressure, featuring a couple of corners and a lot of heavy-metal hassling. It all ends when Ozil sweeps home from six yards, though the whistle had long gone for a block on Alonso amid a penalty-box melee.
57 min: Moses is replaced by Zappacosta. “It’s amazing to me that I have never seen that Beckenbauer free kick before,” begins Mac Millings. “In fact, I refuse to believe it possible that I can have reached 45 years of age with even being aware of its existence. Conclusion? That goal is no more real than ‘Gary Naylor’.” Bah! Busted after all these years.
55 min: And you could say the same about Wilshere. He’s already booked, and he goes over Christensen’s leg on the edge of the Chelsea box, looking for a free kick. The referee’s having none of it. Could he have shown Wilshere another yellow for a dive? There’s probably just enough ambiguity in the trick. But Arsenal could do with taking a bit more care here. On another day, with another ref, all that...
53 min: More end-to-end fun. Lacazette is one-on-one, for a split second, latching onto an Ozil slider down the inside left. He goes for the big whack, as opposed to the dink over Courtois, and the keeper wins the duel. The resulting corner leads to a Chelsea break upfield. That ends with Hazard and Morata failing to get a bouncing ball under control on the right-hand corner of the Arsenal six-yard box. Cech smothers. In the move upfield, Holding had clattered Fabregas, so he goes in the book. Given his trip on Morata a few minutes earlier, you could argue that he’s a lucky lad.
51 min: And off Arsenal go up the other end, the highly promising Maitland-Niles flashing down the left and curling high towards the far post. If only Sanchez was an inch taller. Goal kick.
50 min: Fabregas slips Hazard away down the right. Hazard enters the box and fizzes a shot towards the bottom left. Cech blocks. The ball springs to Bakayoko out on the right. He scoops inside. Alonso, coming in from the left, rises high and crashes a stunning header towards the bottom right. Cech turns it round the post. The corner comes to nothing.
49 min: Morata executes a perfect on-a-sixpence spin, and makes to sprint off down the right. He’s got a lot of grass in front of him, and so he’s cynically clipped from behind by Holding. It really should have been a yellow card, but the referee’s feeling generous. The free kick is far enough upfield to be no danger whatsoever.
47 min: Hazard goes dancing down the left but his cross into the box is nowhere near Morata. Chelsea on the front foot in the early stages of the half.
And we’re off again! Chelsea are 45 minutes away from becoming the first team in the Premier League this season to string together five clean sheets. Can Arsenal, who have scored in their last 24 home matches, stop them? The visitors get the ball rolling for the second half. “Evening Scott,” begins Simon McMahon. “Flattery gets you everywhere I was once told. Happy New Year to you, you handsome devil. The story about the strips is of course told in The Title, a brilliant history of pre-Premiership English football. I can thoroughly recommend it, having bought it for myself and all my friends for Christmas. Two copies then. Some of today’s overpaid lot, on both sides of the white line, would do well to read it.” Believe it or not, I’ve not paid him a penny for that.
Half-time viewing: This comes courtesy of Gary Naylor, a notoriously hard man to please. He thinks Marcos Alonso should have done better with that free kick on 38 minutes. “Why doesn’t anybody try this? Beyond the obvious reason of course?”
HALF TIME: Arsenal 0-0 Chelsea
And that’s your lot for the first half. No goals, but a highly entertaining 45 minutes of end-to-end football.
45 min: Chelsea very nearly open the scoring with a picture-book move. Ozil bursts down the middle of the park but is dispossessed by a crunching Kante tackle. The ball’s sprayed to Hazard down the inside-left channel. Hazard reaches the area and drifts across the front of it, left to right. On the right-hand edge of the D, he flicks it back to tee up Fabregas on the edge of the box. Fabregas looks to curl into the top right, but gets over-excited. That would have been something else.