02/03/2026 – Arsenal 2-1 Chelsea “Timber’s Towering Moment and Neto’s Madness”

Its now four and a half years since we last lost to Chelsea in the league, how bloody lovely. It wasn’t a vintage performance by any means and to be honest I thought we were poor, but if you want to win the title its by any means necessary, it doesn’t need to be pretty, especially against the dirty blues. Pedro Neto totted up their ninth red card of the season, they are now only second to Sunderland for that unwanted record. Chelsea for the majority of the game were strong and caused us issues, Sanchez looked as dodgy and nervous as usual, but we failed to take advantage of that in the first half, again drawing at half time due to our own defensive mistakes. After the first half an hour Chelsea would’ve snapped your hand off to be drawing at the break but an own goal from Hincapie gave them the goal they needed to kick on. They celebrated like they had won the league and that really lit a fire in the home fans, who were now even more desperate to win.

In the second half we struggled to get going, it was another set piece that gave us the advantage but if it wasn’t for Pedro Neto’s stupidity I feel the game could’ve gone in a very different direction. It was another set piece goal that regained our lead, a towering header from Timber after yet another great delivery from Rice who gave some back to the Chelsea fans when that hit the net. There was only 4 minutes between our second goal and Neto’s red card, he managed to get a yellow in between too. What a melt, his team have just dropped behind and now he makes a terrible decision to slice Martinelli in half after just receiving a yellow for descent, I would be absolutely fuming if an Arsenal player had managed that, it reminded me of the early days of Granit Xhaka, just always making idiotic decisions. However, most fans felt that after that red we would kick on and power home our advantage, this wasn’t the case, we again scored a goal and turned into a nag of nerves. We showed absolutely no intent to kill the game off, instead every fan had their heads in their hands or were hiding behind their seat feeling the inevitable Chelsea goal was coming. I feel if they had managed to equalise that could’ve been the game that lost us the league, but thankfully their goal was correctly ruled out for offside. David Raya had one of those games, he reminded everyone of what a top keeper his is, multiple saves in the dying moments helping us hold onto the three points. It was an especially satisfying win as we weren’t anywhere near our best, anytime you can beat Chelsea is brilliant but beating them with the pressure of the title race is so important. The performance is irrelevant when you get the three points.

Liam Rosenior has lost three games as Chelsea boss, the first being Arsenal, the second being Arsenal and the third being Arsenal. Safe to say Arteta has well and truly got the Chelsea man’s number. Its Brighton next for us on Wednesday before break from the League when Mansfield in the FA Cup at the weekend. Brighton will be a tough matchup; we have struggled at the Amex in the past so it will be a real test. Man City play Forrest at home so you would imagine they will be hot on our heels. Keep enjoying the ride and keep believing. COYG

The Northbank Blogger.

Match Ratings:

Raya 9/10

Timber 8.5/10

Saliba 8/10

Gabriel 8/10

Hincapie 7/10

Zubimendi 7/10

Rice 8/10

Saka 7/10

Gyokores 7/10

Trossard 7/10

Subs:

Martinelli 6/10

Havertz 6/10

Norgaard 6/10