Arsenal Revive Champions League Hopes With Win Over Chelsea

By Max Wise

Arsenal injected renewed belief into their top four hopes and blow the race for Champions League qualification wide open when they defeated a below-par Chelsea 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday evening.

Goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Laurent Koscielny proved enough to condemn Chelsea to their fourth league defeat of the season.

The result moves the Gunners back above Manchester United into fifth place, three points adrift Chelsea who are in fourth place.

Kepa Arrizabalaga showed great reflexes to keep out Koscielny’s diving header from an Arsenal free-kick in the 13th minute, but from the resulting corner Arsenal took a deserved lead.

Hector Bellerin benefited from a short corner, and his ball into the feet of Alexandre Lacazette, allowed the Frenchman to get clear of Pedro, hold off a challenge from Marcos Alonso and drill the ball past Kepa Arrizabalaga from a tight angle.

Pedro timed his run perfectly to receive a beautiful pass from David Luiz in the 19th minute but his lofted ball over the on rushing Bernd Leno went wide by the narrowest of margins.

Koscielny literally shouldered Arsenal further ahead in the 38th minute as his attempted dive to head Sokratis’ ball into a packed penalty area went horribly wrong, but the ball bounced off his shoulder into the net.

On the cusp of half time Chelsea almost halved the deficit but Alonso could only watch on as his header from Willian’s corner bounced off the left upright.

Chelsea failed to muster a single shot on target in the second half as they once again deployed Eden Hazard in a ‘false nine’ position, with Olivier Giroud on the bench and Alvaro Morata not travelling with the squad.