Arsenal 3-1 Chelsea
by Layth Yousif
at Ashburton Grove 

ARSENAL eased past a distinctly underwhelming Chelsea side to leapfrog Manchester City to move two points clear at the top of the Premier League, albeit with Pep Guardiola's side having a pair of games in hand.

On Tuesday evening Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta made three changes from the side that lost 4-1 at City. January signing Jakub Kiwior replaced Rob Holding, with Jorginho facing his former club in place of Thomas Partey, while Leandro Trossard swapped places with Gabi Martinelli.

Frank Lampard's Blues came into the match in an awful run of form – and were to depart North London having lost six on the bounce. Chelsea did nothing to dispel the notion that Todd Boehly's underwhelming collection of big names have completely let their club down. Not to mention previous boss Graham Potter, through their poor displays all season, that culminated in the former Brighton boss being sacked, ahead of former Blues playing idol Lampard being drafted in.

This was underlined by the utterly abject performance by former Gunner Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang - among others - during a dire opening 45 minutes that saw Arteta's side race to a three-goal lead.

Gunners captain Martin Odegaard fired home a first time left-footed shot past Kepa to put the home side 1-0 ahead on 18 minutes, after being fed by Granit Xhaka. Shortly afterwards, in Chelsea's best moment of a bad half for them, Arsenal keeper Aaron Ramsdale saved well from Ben Chilwell to deny the Blues an equaliser.

Yet, Arteta's side were hungry and continued to dominate their West London visitors. Just after the half hour mark, Odegaard doubled the lead with his second of the evening after an excellent finish past Kepa, while Xhaka's ball into the box for the Norway international gave him his second assist of a productive evening.

A mere 180 seconds later Gabriel Jesus made it 3-0 following further dominance by Arsenal in the final third saw the Brazil attacker slot home from close range.

The former City star then missed a chance to make it four after the interval, a break which saw the underperforming Aubameyang hooked at half time by a frustrated Lampard, in favour of Kai Havertz, much to the mirth of a gleeful Gunners crowd upon hearing the news at the start of the second half.

With 25 minutes remaining, Chukwunonsa Madueke ran in behind Oleksandr Zinchenko to collect Mateo Kovacic's pass, with his scrappy finish finding a way past Ramsdale to make it 3-1 with his first Premier League goal.

Despite the goal, the chasm between the two teams was evident with Lampard's struggling Blues on 39 points, a full 39 points behind the Premier League leaders.

However, while the Gunners went back to the top of the table with this victory, it remains to be seen for how long, given Guardiola's side host struggling West Ham and Leeds United over the coming days, with rampant City firmly intent on overhauling the two-point gap that Arsenal carved after beating sorry Chelsea.